title: [Infertility and treatment in a representative population].
abstract: The objective was to investigate lifetime prevalence of infertility, the seeking of infertility treatment and outcomes of treatment. A random sample of 3,743 women, 15 to 44 years old, were asked about infertility, their seeking of infertility treatment, diagnosis provided by their doctors and subsequent parenthood in a postal questionnaire. Response rate was 78%. Of the women who had attempted to have a child, 26.2% had experienced infertility; 4.1% af the women aged 25 to 44 years were currently primary infertile and 8.6% had involuntarily never delivered a child; 47.4% of the infertile women had sought infertility treatment. Significant predictors for seeking treatment were over nine years of school education and not having delivered a child. Of the treated infertile women 54.9% subsequently had a child. Only 30% of these reported that the successful delivery was treatment-related. The health care system should ensure that infertile couples from lower social classes are offered information on the possibility of infertility treatment.
authors.affiliation: Københavns Universitet, Afdeling for Social Medicin.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: K R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Münster
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Helm
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007247:Infertility, Female / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D007248:Infertility, Male / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
vernacular_title: Infertilitet og behandling i en repraesentativ population.