Commentary on “Awareness of and attitudes toward infertility and its treatment: a cross-sectional survey of men in a United States primary care population”

success rates of reproductive medical interventions. Useful may be free information sessions for patients, for example. It has been suggested that family planning and reproductive medicine aspects should be an integral part of sex education at school – just like education about contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. 5 However, it is not only infertile people who may lack knowledge of reproductive functions. There are also wrong perceptions among physicians regarding, for example, the association of infertility with the female age. 10 In particular, andrological topics are grossly neglected during medical education for students and later on, for doctors specializing in urology, endocrinology and dermatology (in Germany, where andrology is part of dermatology). The need for clinical andrology should much more be emphasized. 11 Not least, it should also come more into the mind of physicians being active in reproductive medicine that there are methods other than assisted fertilization to improve male infertility, in particular different regimes of drug treatment have been re-evaluated most recently. A more comprehensive approach to overcome male infertility would most probably increase the utilization of andrological health care because a considerable part of infertile couples would prefer simpler methods than ICSI to achieve a pregnancy. Awareness of and attitudes towards infertility and its treatment: a cross-sectional survey of men in a United States primary care population. What do you know about reproductive medicine? – results of a German representative survey. PLoS One 2012; 7: e50113. 6 Fisher JR, Hammarberg K. Psychological and social aspects of infertility in men: an overview of the evidence and implications for psychologically informed clinical care and future research. The role of sperm oxidative stress in male infertility and the significance of oral antioxidant therapy. Involuntary childlessness occurs in about 6%–9% of all couples in central Europe, 1 the incidence in the Unites States is comparable. 2 At least 50% of all couples affected do not seek medical help. 3 This may have different reasons. In the present article, the authors point out that awareness and familiarity with infertility is greater in high socioeconomic status men but did not differ by race. In contrast, non-Caucasian men indicated that the infertility would be a serious condition for them; moreover, they are concerned about infertility and believe that it impairs a man's quality-of-life. Thus, lack of awareness of the condition of infertility and of its treatment options may contribute to previously described …