Department of People and Organisations, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Department of People and Organisations, School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2021 Oct;287:114317. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114317. Epub 2021 Aug 14.
The proliferation and popularity of additional treatments in IVF, also known as add-ons, has generated widespread discussion and controversy in the UK, where concerns have addressed the lack of evidence to support the efficacy and safety of these treatments, their cost, and their connection to a wider context of privatisation of fertility treatment. Drawing on 42 interviews with IVF patients, this article explores the role of hope in the appeal of add-ons from the patient perspective. The analysis is presented in two parts: firstly, we investigate the role of hope in patients' decision-making on treatment, contextualising add-ons in the broader trajectory of their IVF experience; secondly, we examine how patients navigate the offer of add-ons, focusing on the role of hope in how they rationalise their decisions on whether to include them in their fertility treatment. Our analysis shows how patients craft their hope to navigate the increasing number of available options in their quest to find the treatment(s) that will "work" for them. We suggest that the imperative for patients to explore all options is intensified with the emergence of add-ons, which produces a novel context and version of a "hope technology".
辅助生殖技术中额外治疗方法（也称为附加治疗）的增多和普及在英国引发了广泛的讨论和争议。人们关注的问题包括这些治疗方法的疗效和安全性、成本缺乏证据支持，以及它们与生育治疗私有化更广泛背景之间的联系。本文通过对 42 名接受 IVF 治疗的患者的采访，从患者的角度探讨了希望在附加治疗吸引力中的作用。分析分为两部分：首先，我们研究了希望在患者治疗决策中的作用，将附加治疗纳入他们 IVF 经历的更广泛轨迹中；其次，我们考察了患者如何应对附加治疗的提供，重点关注希望在他们如何合理化是否将其纳入生育治疗的决策中的作用。我们的分析表明，患者如何塑造自己的希望，以在寻求对他们有效的治疗方法的过程中，应对越来越多的可用选择。我们认为，随着附加治疗的出现，患者探索所有选择的必要性加剧了，这产生了一种新的“希望技术”的背景和版本。
