Assessment of attitudes towards assisted reproduction: a survey among medical students and parous women.

BACKGROUND

The present paper explores attitudes towards different aspects of assisted reproductive technologies among parous women and future doctors (third- and fourth-year medical students).

METHODS

We anonymously surveyed 200 parous women who had at least three infants and had given birth at Kuopio University Hospital, and 200 medical students of Kuopio University.

RESULTS

The overall response rate was 45%. Most of the medical students were childless (95.7%), unmarried (63.8%), and younger (24 vs. 35 years) compared with the parous women (p < 0.001). Medical students were liberal in questions of who has the right to get infertility treatment: 49% of them would allow the possibility to lesbian couples, 43% to homosexual couples and over 50% to single women. Over 40% of medical students would allow the use of a surrogate mother for lesbian and homosexual couples; the number was under 20% in the group of parous women. Their setting of priorities within the field of reproductive health also showed differences in prostate cancer screening, doctor's appointments for contraception, abortion and menopausal hormone replacement therapy.

CONCLUSIONS

Medical students take a rather liberal stance on reproductive issues. On the other hand, baseline attitudes among medical students reveal some degree of subjectivism when it comes to allocation of scarce healthcare resources within the field of reproductive health. Medical education faces a challenge in ensuring that future physicians are able to set priorities and balance resources between preventive medicine and management of specific medical conditions, and to base their attitudes on evidence.