This article appears in the following ESHRE Monographs issue: ESHRE Special Task Force on 'Developing Countries and Infertility' [View the issue table of contents]
Infertility-related reproductive health knowledge and help-seeking behaviour in African countries
Reproductive Medicine Unit, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Groote Schuur Hospital and Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, South Africa
1Correspondence address. E-mail: silke.dyer{at}uct.ac.za
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Abstract |
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Data from African countries indicate that men and women attribute infertility to traditional beliefs about health and disease as well as to biomedical causes, although appropriate knowledge of the latter is frequently lacking. Infertility is a dreaded condition and as a result help-seeking is often intense and persistent. Most of the help-seeking is undertaken by women and both traditional and modern biomedical health services are accessed. There are, however, many barriers to effective and affordable biomedical infertility care, many of which are related to poor resources and lack of infrastructure, and as a result the need for infertility treatment is often unmet. Advances in the quality of care require greater commitment to the problem of infertility in African countries, the provision of health education as an integral part of infertility management, the integration of infertility services into reproductive health care programmes and defining the role of assisted reproductive technologies in low resource settings. At the same time the importance of traditional health services in infertility management should be recognized.
Keywords: infertility; knowledge; health-seeking behaviour; traditional health care; Africa