Assessment of environmental knowledge and needs among assisted reproductive technology professionals
- PDF / 537,121 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 18 Downloads / 162 Views
ASSISTED REPRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES
Assessment of environmental knowledge and needs among assisted reproductive technology professionals Annick Delvigne 1
&
Jean Vandromme 2
Received: 13 April 2020 / Accepted: 13 July 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose Exposure to environmental contaminants is to be taken into account in preventive healthcare in general and particularly in the field of reproduction according to the increasing amount of evidence data being published. The aim of this study is to evaluate the practices and interest in and basic knowledge of environmental health, by the professionals of the ART process: doctor, embryologist, and nurses. Methods Survey among 12 Belgian assisted reproductive technology (ART) centers. Results The response rate was 67%: 43.5% of the ART professionals do bring up the topic of environmental contaminants with their patients, without significant differences among types of professionals. Ninety percent of respondents believe that it would be useful, and 63% mention their lack of knowledge and the absence of solutions (20.5%) to explain their inaction. Lack of knowledge is much greater for nurses respectively (85%) compared with doctors (52%) and biologists (54%). The most popular means toward improving their knowledge is scientific seminars (69%). The questionnaire to evaluate the health professional knowledge gives 56% of adequate replies. The topic concerning eating habits obtains a very bad score of knowledge. When looking at exposure to occupational risks, 75% of the answers were correct. Conclusions The place of ART before conception makes it an ideal entry point for the prevention of environmental hazards. This study corroborates the previous observations which underline the importance to reinforce the concepts of environmental health in the initial and continuous training of health professionals. Keywords Environmental health . ART . Preventive attitude . Reproductive health
Introduction Exposure to environmental contaminants is, at this time, seen as an important and even essential factor to be taken into account in preventive healthcare in general and particularly in the field of reproduction [1]. An increase number of scientific societies in the health and gynecology sphere agree to recommend special attention to environmental health following the accumulation of sufficiently
* Annick Delvigne [email protected] Jean Vandromme [email protected] 1
ART center, Clinique CHC MontLégia, Liège, Belgium
2
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, CHU Saint Pierre, Brussels, Belgium
robust evidence at the present time [2]. Their guidelines invite reproductive and other health professionals to advocate for policies to prevent exposure to toxic environmental chemicals [3]. Inhalation, ingestion, or muco-transcutaneous penetration of toxic agents during the periconceptional period could lead to harmful effects on fertility as well as nonhereditary, toxic effects on descendants [4, 5]. These consideration
Data Loading...
