Patterns of infertility among couples attending IVF center in maternity teaching hospital in Erbil

Abstract

Background and objective: An understanding of certain socio demographic, clinical characters and causes of infertility among couples is important for improving management of this problem. This study aimed to assess the clinico-epidemiological pattern of infertile couples and to find out the association of infertility with various socio-demographic characteristics of infertile couples.Methods: This is a case record review study carried out from March 2013 through April 2014. It comprised a retrospective review of a convenience sample of 1158 medical records of infertile couples attending the infertility center in Maternity hospital in Erbil city. Data collected; based on secondary data that was obtained from infertile couples medical records from the center. The medical records included socio-demographic characteristics of couples, data about the gynecological, surgical and medical history of wives and medical and surgical history of husbands. In-depth analyses of the data obtained from files were done by using SPSS version 19.Results: Of the 1158 infertile couples, 727 (63%) had primary, and 431 (37%) had secondary infertility. The age range of wives was 15-48 years with mean ± SD of 31.25 ± 7.0 years and age range of husbands was 17-71 years with mean ± SD of 35.28 ± 8.0 years. The duration of infertility ranged between 1-27 years with mean ± SD of 6.2 ± 4.8 years. The proportion of primary infertility was significantly higher (91.5%) among women less than 20 years of age, while secondary infertility was higher (48%) among those aged 40 years and more. Female causes accounted for 32%, male causes account for 26%, combined cause 18% and 24% of them had unknown causes for infertility. Abnormal seminal fluid analysis parameter was significantly observed among primary infertile husband. Among wives, the infertility factors were the menstrual disorder, miscarriage and hormonal disorder.Conclusion: Primary infertility was more prevalent among the study sample. Infertility was significantly associated with age, occupation and history of previous marriage among wives