Knowledge of and attitudes towards infertility held by members of two county councils in Sweden

Background. To investigate Swedish county council members knowledge of the laws regulating infertility treatment, their understanding of the suggestio ns put forward in the report 'Priorities in Health Care' and their attitude s towards infertility. Methods. All members (n = 182) of the 1998 county councils of Linkoping and Jonkoping were asked to participate in the study. In total, 153 answered t he questionnaire. Results. Different age groups did not show different levels of knowledge. S imilarly, there was no significant difference between men and women concern ing their knowledge of infertility laws. Furthermore, those committee membe rs who were very positive towards infertility treatment did not have any be tter knowledge of such treatment than those who were less positive. The men and women who themselves had previously had or were dealing with infertili ty problems at the time of the survey (12 per cent) displayed the same leve l of knowledge as the other council members. They also expressed similar at titudes. The members showed very little familiarity with the priority group s suggested in the report from the Health Care Priority Committee. For exam ple, only 18 per cent knew that this committee in priority group III placed infertility treatment and investigation. 31.3 per cent answered that infer tility was placed in group V, a group that does not exist. The majority sta ted that they had a positive attitude towards the treatment of infertility. This is indicated, for example, by their rejection of the statement 'it's [infertility is] a luxury problem'. Conclusions. The relative lack of knowledge of Swedish law and of the repor t from the Health Care Priority Committee might lead to a lower level of co mmitment to dealing with the problems that infertile couples face than if t he members were better informed. In other words, this lack of knowledge mig ht influence the decisions of the county council members.