ArticleHealth expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy2022
Feasibility and acceptability of psychosocial care for unsuccessful fertility treatment.
Article in Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gender Differences in Anxiety, Depression, and Fertility-Related Quality of Life Among Infertile Couples: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- A multi-country study to co-design and evaluate digital educational resources to support conversations about ending fertility treatment.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Endometrial cortisol level and its relationship with psychological stress, molecular tissue changes, and clinical outcomes in infertile women.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Mixed-methods pilot feasibility single-arm trial of Beyond Fertility: a brief face-to-face psychosocial intervention to promote patients' adjustment to the end of unsuccessful fertility treatment.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2026Article
- Validation and dyadic invariance of the Infertility Concerns Questionnaire among Brazilian couples.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Determinants of the economic burden of ART on the Italian NHS: insights from the Lombardy region.Health economics review · 2024Article
- Fertility clinics have a duty of care towards patients who do not have children with treatment.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Discussing the possibility of fertility treatment being unsuccessful as part of routine care offered at clinics: patients' experiences, willingness, and preferences.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Feasibility and acceptability of psychosocial care for unsuccessful fertility treatment.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionMany people undergo fertility treatment to have biological children, but around four in ten patients complete all treatment cycles without having the children they desire. This triggers intense grief from which patients report taking on average 2 years to recover. Fertility guidelines and regulators stress the need to support patients through this process, but there is a scarcity of evaluated interventions to this end and evidence about when and how to offer care is lacking. This study explored patients' and healthcare professionals' (HCPs) experiences of and views about provision of psychosocial care (to patients facing unsuccessful fertility treatment, i.e., care provided by a mental health professional to address the emotional, cognitive, behavioural, relational and social needs that patients have at this stage of treatment).
methodsFive qualitative online focus groups were conducted with Portuguese participants: three with patients waiting to initiate or undergoing their last cycle of in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection or having completed it within the last 2 months without achieving a pregnancy and two with HCPs working at fertility clinics. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim, and data were analysed with Framework Analysis.
resultsThirteen patients and nine HCPs participated. Analysis resulted in 1293 codes, systematically organized into 13 categories, 4 themes and 1 metatheme. The latter showed high consensus about the need for psychosocial care for unsuccessful treatment, but perceived challenges in its implementation. Themes reflected (1) consensual demand for psychosocial care at all stages of treatment but particularly at the end, (2) high perceived acceptability of integrating preventive care initiated during treatment with early psychosocial care only for those patients who experience unsuccessful treatment, (3) perceived challenges of implementing psychosocial care for unsuccessful treatment at clinics and (4) suggestions to promote its acceptability and feasibility.
conclusionPatients and HCPs perceive that clinics should improve care provision across the whole treatment pathway and in particular for unsuccessful fertility treatment. Suggestions were made to inform future research focusing on the development and evaluation of psychosocial interventions to this end. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Patients and HCPs participated in the focus groups. Two HCPs also revised the manuscript.
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