Current Awareness and Attitude toward Fertility Preservation in Indonesia: A Nationwide Survey Among Health-care Providers.

CONTEXT

Fertility preservation (FP) is necessary for cancer patients who develop infertility due to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In Indonesia, many systematic steps and long-term continued actions must be taken to establish FP units since there has been an increasing incidence of cancer among people under 45 years old.

AIMS

This study aimed at a comprehensive evaluation on the awareness and practices of health-care providers (HCPs) toward FP.

SETTINGS AND DESIGN

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

A validated nationwide online survey was completed by 160 HCPs as a representative sample from 11 provinces in 2017 that provide medical care to cancer patients at hospitals or clinics.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED

Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, logistic regression, and Pearson correlation tests were used for the statistical analysis.

RESULTS

Respondents were specialists (59.4%) and other HCPs (40.6%). Around 60% of the HCPs who performed cancer therapies already discussed the fertility issues with their patients. Meanwhile, the HCPs (60.7%) also tended not to consult and refer their patients to fertility experts ( < 0.05). However, those who discussed the risk of infertility with patients tended to consult with and refer them to a fertility consultant for further FP procedure as the follow-up for their discussions (odds ratio = 8.98, confidence interval 95%, < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

In Indonesia, FP awareness of the HCPs who performed cancer therapy was high. Nevertheless, attitudes to refer patients to fertility experts for possible FP management still need to be improved.