- Title
- The association between reproductive health smartphone applications and fertility knowledge of Australian women
- Creator
- Ford, Emmalee A.; Roman, Shaun D.; McLaughlin, Eileen A.; Beckett, Emma L.; Sutherland, Jessie M.
- Relation
- NHMRC.G1600095
- Relation
- BMC Women's Health Vol. 20, Issue 1, no. 45
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-00912-y
- Publisher
- Biomed Central (BMC)
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Background: Previous studies have identified that women living in developed countries have insufficient knowledge of factors which may be contributing to the increasingly high global infertility rates such as maternal age and assisted reproductive technologies. There is a large market of reproductive health smartphone applications, yet little is known about the advantages these apps may confer to users in regards to reproductive health knowledge. Methods: An anonymous, online survey of women living in Australia aged 18 and above was open March-June 2018, until =200 responses were acquired for statistical power. Respondents answered questions regarding knowledge about general fertility and related factors (age, cyclic fertility, smoking, obesity, miscarriage rate, and success of assisted reproductive technologies). Fertility knowledge was compared in respondents who did or did not use apps relating to female reproductive health. Additionally the functions preferred in reproductive health apps was described by app using respondents. Sociodemographic information was also collected, and relevant data within the dataset was subject to multivariable modelling for the outcome of the fertility knowledge questions. Results: Of the 673 respondents that completed the survey, 43.09% reported using mobile phone applications relating to female reproductive health. On average, respondents answered only three of the six fertility knowledge questions correctly. App using respondents were more likely to score better on one question, related to fertility during the menstrual cycle (p < 0.001). App users most commonly reported using the menstrual tracking function in apps (82.4%), which may account for the increased knowledge of cyclic fertility. Conclusions: This data provides preliminary evidence toward the usefulness of smartphone applications as a medium for providing information about fertility to women. A limited understanding of one's own fertility was demonstrated despite being essential for the decision-making of women throughout their reproductive years.
- Subject
- female infertility; education; mHealth; fertility awareness; menstrual cycle; SDG 3; SDG 5; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1451433
- Identifier
- uon:44188
- Identifier
- ISSN:1472-6874
- Rights
- © 2020 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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