EXPLORING JAHROM RESIDENTS' AWARENESS OF TREATMENT THROUGH EMBRYO DONATION AND OF MORAL AND LEGAL ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH IT IN 2015

Abstract

Introduction: Currently, in most countries, including Iran, different methods of infertility treatment are available for infertile couples. One of these methods is donating the embryos under certain conditions. Given that people's attitude in relation to treatment through embryo donation and their awareness about ethical and legal issues can play an important role in assisted reproductive techniques, this research was carried out with the aim of investigating Jahrom residents' awareness of treatment through embryo donation and of moral and legal issues associated with it . Materials and method: In the cross-sectional study conducted in 2014, a total of 400 men and women aged 18 to 35 years old, regardless of reproductive history, resident in Jahrom participated in the present study. Information were collected through a questionnaire consisting of two parts: the first part included demographic data (age, gender, number of children, education level, place of residence and marital status, history of infertility), the second part contained 19 questions related to ethical and legal aspects of embryo donation. The system of scoring the questionnaire questions was in the form of 5-point Likert (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = No Comment, 4 = Agree and 5 = Strongly Agree). Data collected by descriptive statistics and calculating central tendency and dispersion were analyzed with the help of using SPSS statistical software (version 16). Results: Results showed that the average age of the subjects was 6.09 ± 27.48 years. 41% were male and 59% were female. 34.8% of subjects had a history of infertility and 33.5% of them were employees. The subjects' awareness mean score was 7.58 ± 50.22 that was average with respect to the minimum and maximum scores. The only significant correlation was observed between sex and intelligence mean score (r = 0.179, p = 0.029). Conclusion: Providing educational programs and training courses in the form of counseling before marriage and pregnancy can help to improve the level of knowledge and awareness of the society in the field of infertility treatment methods.