¿Cuál es el conocimiento que poseen las donantes de ovocitos sobre su salud reproductiva?

What is the knowledge of oocyte donors about their reproductive health?

Abstract

Gamete donors are a group especially involved in reproductive issues since they help many people to solve their fertility problems and must undergo numerous tests before being accepted as such. However, there are no studies in Spain that deal with the knowledge that young people and, more specifically, donors, have about reproductive health and fertility. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify what degree of reproductive health knowledge have oocyte donors. It was carried out a prospective, cross-sectional multicenter study including oocyte donors at ten fertility clinics performing ga- mete donation treatment in Spain. During a 2-month period (September-October 2020), 63 donors aged between 19 and 35 years old were recruited consecutively and a total of 63 oocyte donors were included as sample population. Participants anonymously completed a questionnaire containing 41 questions divided into three sections: sociodemographic characte- ristics (11 items), knowledge on fertility and reproduction (22 items) and with a Likert scale, response to determine general reproductive health information as well as known risks for fertility disorders (8 items). Besides descriptive statistics, sta- tistical analysis was performed with Chi square test. p <0.05 was considered significant.

Results showed that the increasing age of the women was correctly assessed by the participants of the study as a decisive risk factor for fertility, but it was found that exact knowledge was lacking: the decrease of a woman’s fertility by 39.7 % was stated to occur on average at the age of 35-40 and by 30 % at 40-45. 61.1 % of the non-university donors reported that fertility can drop as a woman ages due to the decreasing number and quality of the remaining eggs. Merely 47 % of the participants informed what they understood that ovarian reserve is and 47.6% of donors believed that women create new eggs every month.

The results of this study reveal that although oocyte donors are aware of the risks of possible fertility disorders, reproductive health knowledge is insufficient.