Page 33 - Shared Guideline Development Experiences in Fertility Care

... at the advanced stage of care you are in, you will have more need for emotional support. Simply being able to talk about it may be enough, but that is lacking.
Domain III: patients
Taboo on infertility. In general, patients experienced di culties in mentioning
their infertility problem. ey postponed visiting their GP and it proved di cult 2 to discuss it with their employer.
... it is very hard to talk about it to third parties, especially if you depend on them.
Domain IV: organisation
Poor care alignment. e poor alignment of care, especially between the GP and the gynaecologist, was mentioned most o en. Furthermore, communication was lacking between primary and secondary care. Regularly, GPs had no notion of the phase of care the couple being treated were in.
I think the referral letter is the only alignment between the gynaecologist and the GP... I do not think my GP knows what we are going through. ... I do not think they’re communicating.
Lack of attention to work. Patients experienced problems with work, because appointments were only possible during working hours. Hence, they had to take time o or pay for their absence.
...you need to make arrangements at work, because you have to visit the hospital at very inconvenient moments.
Lack of support a er treatment. Currently, there is hardly any support a er treatment, particularly for patients who remain childless.
What was the support a er treatment like? ere was no support.
Standard treatment according to protocols. Patients did not always like to be treated according to protocols. Some couples experienced those as impersonal; others missed the liberty of having a free choice.
... at the second attempt, they came back on it and said that they had to follow a protocol, and I did not have a choice anymore.
Key clinical issues in fertility care
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