Enhancing Subfertility Awareness and Knowledge among Women: A Study of Educational Leaflet Intervention in Selected Two Fertility Centres, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Subfertility describes as any form of reduction of fertility without using contraception within more than a year. Good knowledge regarding subfertility may help to reduce the incidence of infertility, leading to the management of fertility problems. This study was designed to measure baseline knowledge and post-intervention knowledge in subfertile women attending two fertility centers, Karapitiya using an intervention of educational leaflet. The questionnaire was given to the selected women (n = 35) attending subfertility clinics at German-Sri Lanka Friendship Hospital for Women, Galle and Ruhunu Hospital, Karapitiya after obtaining the consent. After providing answers to the questionnaire, educational leaflet was provided to them to improve their knowledge and awareness of the subfertility. Then after three weeks, the same questionnaire was given and answer sheets was collected for assessing the improvement of knowledge. Data were analysed using SPSS 26 software. Paired sample t-test and Chi-square test were used to analyse the data. According to the results, there is a significant association between knowledge improvement on clinical diagnosis and education level (p < 0.05). The baseline knowledge is 56.86%. Knowledge after the intervention is 73.75%. Then knowledge improvement is 16.89%. Paired sample t-test showed a significant difference in the average values of the knowledge before the intervention and after the intervention. The average 95% confidence interval for the knowledge improvement was increased as 13.52 for the total group. Total population's baseline knowledge is high compared to the other studies while they have obtained a 16.89% of knowledge improvement after the intervention. However, this knowledge improvement is less in the current study may be due to the high baseline knowledge compared to the other studies. Small sample size is a major limitation. This is a baseline study and further research is needed to determine the awareness effectively using a large population.