Quality of life of Sudanese patients attending a fertility clinic: a mixed methods study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Infertility affects over 50 million people globally, the burden is disproportionately borne by women, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). The impact of infertility on quality of life (QoL) has not been well documented or assessed qualitatively in LMIC like Sudan, where infertility is a pervasive problem. Therefore, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to assess the fertility-related QoL of infertile individuals in Sudan using the fertility quality of life (FertiQoL) tool.Methods We used explanatory sequential design (surveys and interviews) in a fertility clinic in Sudan (January 2017–May 2018). We collected socio-demographic information, medical/reproductive history and used Arabic FertiQoL. We generated descriptive statistics of FertiQoL (core, domain) scores and independent variables; multiple linear regression models to assess the relationship between FertiQoL and dependent variables; and t-tests to compare mean core/domain scores. We conducted thematic analysis on qualitative data about the subjective experience of being infertile.Results The study included 102 participants (72 women), 70 educated beyond secondary school, mean age 33.89 years (SD = 7.82) and mean duration of infertility was 4.03 years (SD 3.29). Mean FertiQoL core score 76.02 (SD = 16.26), domain scores: emotional 71.61 (SD = 22.04), relational 78.06 (SD = 16.62), mind/body 74.06 (SD 22.53) and social 78.88 (SD = 18.24). Men had better fertility-related QoL.Four themes emerged A sense of something missing because of childlessness; social pressure from peoples’ questions; impact on the spousal relationship (which differed amongst participants) and coping (faith-based and non-faith-based) which was necessary when the lived experience led to internal distress.Conclusions Infertility negatively impacted the QoL of participants in this study, and women were worse off. Cognitive appraisal, social support and pressure may be key factors influencing the QoL of infertile individuals, therefore they should be encouraged to seek social and professional support. FertiQoL is a useful tool to assess fertility QoL in LMIC like Sudan.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".