P-486 Listening to the needs of 18-25 year olds for information and prevention to reverse the trend of infertility
Authors: Sommerfeld M , Chevalier N 
Published: July 2024

Study question

What information and education are needed and by what means can young people be made aware of their future fertility ?

Summary answer

Young adults are looking for concrete answers about fertility.

They want answers from reliable sources, especially health care professionals.

What is known already

Fertility education has already been implemented in various forms (website, assessment and advice clinic, study program) in some countries (1).

Studies (2,3) such as show satisfactory effectiveness in terms of both knowledge and awareness among target populations.

In France, fertility education is booming. Action plans are drawn up to adapt information (influence of age, risk factors, Assisted Human Reproduction techniques ART) (4) and prevention to best protect fertility.

Study design, size, duration

A quantitative study was carried out among 450 young adults from October 2O22 to February 2023.

3 interviews were achieved out beforehand to enrich the questionnaire’s response options, with the aim of satisfying all participants, whatever their social, professional or educational status.

An anonymous 4-part form asked about their socio-demographic criteria, their fertility needs and how they would like to be informed.

The final optional section was used to identify less familiar concepts.

Participants/materials, setting, methods

In our study, 350 participants were women (77,8%), 94 men (20,9%), 5 non-binary and 1 transgender.

63,4% women were students and 60,6% in couples and more then half of the men were students (63,8%), single (57,4%).

Non-binary and transgender people can not statistically included in the results.The questionnaire was circulated on social networks. Results were collected on LimeSurvey storage software, then statistics were performed and interpreted via Numbers and BiostatTGV.

Main results and the role of chance

Whether they’re students or salaried employees, women need more information about fertility than men. And that men feel remote from the subject.

Indeed, women want to know more about how the male and female reproductive systems work (60,9%), how to spot the warning signs of infertility risk (65,8%), the different ART techniques and their limits (51,6%), and the role of lifestyle on reproductive health (61,4%).

Conversely, student men want to learn how to spot the warning signs of infertility risk (52,9%), and are concerned about infertility figures (55,9%). There is a difference with employed men, who only wish to learn about the functioning of the male and female reproductive systems (66,7%).

The responses on the means of raising awareness about fertility do not allow us to conclude that one method is more effective than another in informing them.

By ranking, we find awareness days at 80,6% for women and 60,5% for men. Then there’s the use of reliable websites at 77,8% for women and 58% for men. In third place for both genders are medical consultations with 72,5% for women and 56,8% for men.

These results are similar for students and employees.

Limitations, reasons for caution

As the survey was voluntary, the people who responded were those were most interested in the subject.

Moreover, women are over-represented in our sample, as are students.

A French university has around 43% female students and 35% male students, compared with 63% of both genders in our study.

Wider implications of the findings

A “plan” to combat infertility was recently announced by the French government.

Our results will be used to guide the campaign’s stakeholders on how to raise awareness among 18-25 year-olds, and in particular on the various means to be put in place to make it a success.

Trial registration number

2022-250