Perceptions Of Men's Fertility And Treatment Options
A recent MORI survey conducted on behalf of the National Infertility Awareness Campaign (NIAC) looked extensively into both male and female perceptions of men's fertility and treatment options. The results reveal that men are less likely than women to seek medical treatment or talk to another doctor for a second opinion about infertility, if they were diagnosed as being infertile.
Seventy three percent believe that assisted reproductive techniques should be available on the NHS. This view was widely held by more blue-collar households than white-collar. The picture emerging is that more working class adults believe that in theory fertility treatment should be available to those who need it. However, in practice the results indicated that these men are less likely to come forward to ask for treatment themselves. Furthermore, the survey found that a staggering 96 percent are unaware of the true level of infertility among couples. This is worrying given the average sperm count has plummeted from a high of 113 million per millilitre in 1940 to 66 million per millilitre in 1990.
More worrying is the fact that men appear to be less confident about obtaining advice from healthcare professionals. Twenty six percent of men compared to 15 percent of women would not seek medical help, whether initially visiting their GP or asking for a second opinion. It appears that men are also reluctant to discuss health concerns even with their partners, while those under the age of 45 found infertility a more embarrassing subject to talk about.
General health issues such as ageing, stress and illnesses, and lifestyle issues such as diet, drinking and smoking are less well known as being causes of infertility. Around half (54 percent) attributed infertility to anxiety and stress, while alcohol was cited as the best-known life-style issue (48 percent). Encouragingly, one quarter (28 percent) would make the necessary lifestyle changes if they were diagnosed as being infertile. This suggests people would be prepared to go to some lengths to tackle the problem of infertility.
However, three percent of adults put the blame of infertility firmly on a woman's biological problem. In reality, infertility affects men and women equally, 35 percent of all cases can be attributed to a male problem, 35 percent to a female problem, while the remaining 30 percent remains unexplained. The good news is that although men are not as clued up on the various causes of infertility in general, they are more aware of possible causes of their own infertility such as prostate problems. Whether this heightens awareness of men's health issues and encourages them to seek help from health professionals remains to be seen.
A clear pattern has emerged from the MORI/NIAC survey; there is still a need to raise awareness about infertility amongst men and women. The perception that it is 'easy' to conceive a baby is still fairly widespread, due in part to infertility problems not being freely discussed between couples and healthcare professionals. Infertility is still perceived to be a female problem, just a third of people knew that in infertility cases the problems can equally lie with the male or female. Men are less likely to be aware of the causes of infertility and are less likely to take some kind of action or consider treatment if diagnosed as infertile.
Social Class breakdowns have been defined as used by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. These groupings are standard on all surveys carried out by MORI
Technical details
MORI interviewed a representative quota sample of 735 men aged 30+ and 604 women with a male partner / spouse aged 30+. All interviews were conducted face-to-face, in home between 7 May and 10 May 1999.
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