Awareness of and attitudes towards infertility and its treatment： a cross-sectional survey of men in a United States primary care population

Previous studies have described racial and socioeconomic disparities in the treatment of infertility. Patient factors such as attitudes and awareness may be contributing factors. Since primary care is often the setting that serves as an entry into other areas of medicine, we sought to evaluate men＇s attitudes and awareness of male infertility in the primary care setting. To do this, we performed a cross-sectional survey of men＇s attitudes toward men＇s health issues in 210 men from two primary care clinic waiting rooms in Atlanta, Georgia. The survey was self-administered with closed-ended question items and was approximately 20 min in length. Of the 310 men approached, 210 agreed to participate and returned completed surveys. Overall, 52% of men said they were ＂very＂ or ＂somewhat＂ familiar with infertility and 25% were familiar with treatments for infertility. Some men had heard of surgery （21%） and medication （35%） as treatments for male infertility. Awareness and familiarity with the condition was greater in high socioeconomic status men （i.e. college graduates or those with income 〉$100 k per year） but did not differ by race on multivariate analysis. Attitudes toward infertility varied by race with non-Caucasian men being more likely to indicate that infertility is a serious condition, to be concerned about infertility, and to believe it decreases a man＇s quality-of-life. Therefore, a lack of awareness, but not negative attitudes, may contribute to previously-described disparities in the treatment of infertility.     

The quality of life questionnaire EQ-5D-5L: psychometric properties and normative values for the general German population

Purpose

The health state classifier EQ-5D of the EuroQoL group has been expanded to a 5-level instrument (EQ-5D-5L), but studies on psychometric properties of this new instrument, applied to the general population, are rare.

Methods

A sample of 2,469 subjects, representatively selected from the German general population, was asked to fill in the EQ-5D-5L and several other questionnaires. Crude sum scores of the EQ-5D-5L were calculated and compared with scores derived from two sets of utilities, one from a German and one from a UK sample.

Results

The mean sum score (0–100 scale) was 91.5. Males reported better health states than females, and there was a nearly linear age trend. The list of the 45 most frequent health patterns (those with at least 0.2 % of the respondents) showed that almost half of the participants (47.5 %) responded being in the optimal health state, indicating a ceiling effect. Correlations between EQ-5D-5L scores and other questionnaires were very similar for all three scoring systems of the EQ-5D-5L. Finally, normative scores are given on the basis of sum scores.

Conclusions

The applicability of the EQ-5D-5L in the general population is limited because of the skewness. Sum scores are useful because of their simplicity, international generalizability, and construct validity.     

Small Macrocycles As Highly Active Integrin α2β1 Antagonists

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