knowledge and attitudes of infertile couples about assisted reproductive technology

background: knowledge of infertile couples about assisted reproductive technology is a fundamental parameter to optimize the infertility treatment and conduct it cooperatively. objective: to evaluate knowledge and attitude of infertile couples about assisted reproductive technology we designed a descriptive cross-sectional study. materials and methods: 400 infertile patients were investigated by a self- administered structured questionnaire about demographic data, infertility history, and several relevant variables in an out patient infertility clinic of a university hospital. the main outcome measurements included scoring the answers in the questionnaire regarding knowledge, and grouping the answers regarding attitude. resulted data were analyzed in relation to patient�s gender and treatment history, and educational, ethnic and religious groups. results: of 400 cases (251 women and 149 men) 167 patients (41.7%) were scaled to have good knowledge and 223 patients (55.7%) had a poor knowledge about art. 74.6% of patients with advanced education and 30.3% of patients without advanced education were scaled to be good in knowledge. 45.6% of men, 43.4% of women and 64.8% of patients with a history of passing previous art cycles had a good knowledge. the source of information was mentioned to be the art centers in 73% of cases. 95% of patients disagreed to have sperm or ovum donation or to undergo surrogacy. 22% of all patients (27.5% of women versus 12.1% of men) agreed with embryo reduction. 94.5% of patients mentioned the art expenses not to be affordable readily. conclusions: less than half of patients presented to be knowledgeable about art. not a great portion of the patients agreed with sperm donation. art expense is mentioned to be burdensome by nearly all of the patients.