B2-InF pursues collecting and analysing knowledge, expectations, and concerns of young people aged 18 to 30 from 8 European countries (Spain, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Slovenia) about ART and transferring this information to ART clinics and policymakers. In addition, the information offered by clinics on their web pages will be collected, analysed and contrasted with young people’s perceptions and needs regarding ART. B2-InF results will serve to improve the scientific information offered by ART clinics to society from sociocultural, legal and gender perspectives through citizen-validated national and international guidelines. Furthermore, B2-InF will help understand the evolution of reproductive science and its perceptions on society to promote proactive and anticipatory policy-making and align research developments with society’s needs, expectations, and values.
Therefore, the data collection process defining Stage 1 of the project was two-fold. First, collecting data by interviewing youth in the eight sample countries and second, focusing on clinics and the information they share on their websites across the eight sample countries.
For the first, between 10 to 15 interviews were planned in each country with men and women 18-30 years old, national or migrants living for more than ten years in the country, childless and not ART users. Purposeful sampling was defined for each country following the previous criteria aiming to capture the diversity of each country considering the following variables: age, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, educational level, residence, relationship status, marital status and religious beliefs. The sociodemographic characteristics of young people interviewed were collected in templates specifically designed. Besides, an ad-hoc template was designed to collect the information on the fieldwork of each country. This information was collected by fieldwork teams conducting the interviews in each country. All the interviews were conducted in national languages, audio recorded, literally transcribed, and translated into English.
Prior to writing the report, a literature review was conducted through the consultation of academic databases aiming to describe and summarise the context of each country related to assisted reproduction technology. The information extracted was added to the knowledge and information provided by the fieldwork teams.
For the second point, between 3 to 5 clinics were planned to be explored in each country, aiming to collect the information supplied by the clinic’s websites and the ‘physical information’ (e.g. leaflets, informed consent forms) provided by the selected clinics. Purposeful sampling was defined following the following criteria: a variety of company sizes, variety of ART offered and geographical diversity. The sample excluded those companies that work as intermediaries or do not provide direct clinical services.
‘Physical information’ was collected by downloading PDFs available on the websites or requesting more information from the clinics by email or phone call. The information available on the clinic’s website was collected in the native language of the country in templates specifically designed for it and afterwards translated into English. Data collection was carried out by Medistella (B2-InF partner).
The following video summarises the effort and results of Stage 1 of the project. Watch our project coordinator Prof. Francisco Güell, and project partners Anna Dostalova and Michaela Novotná from Medistella, explain the Phase 1 Journey!