Attitude of Jordanian Health Care Workers Toward Surrogacy

Abstract

Objective: To assess the attitude of Jordanian health care workers toward surrogacy. Materials and methods: Three municipalities in Jordan were randomly selected, one from each region: north, south and central of Jordan. A total of: four public hospitals, three private hospitals, one university hospital, 40 health centers and 40 private clinics were included in the study. Healthcare workers in the selected facilities were randomly approached using a self- administered questionnaire to collect data. Distributions of attitude by gender, job title, and physician's specialty were used to describe participants' attitude toward surrogacy. Results: Responses of 382 participants were reported, of whom, 230 (60.2%) were females. Three in every four participants didn't support legalizing surrogacy in Jordan. Majority reported negative attitude toward commercial surrogacy (85.1%) and noncommercial surrogacy (76.4%). Religious considerations were the main reason (71.1%) for the attitude toward surrogacy. Most items describing attitude toward surrogacy were significantly distributed across different job titles: nurses, medical doctors, and other healthcare workers (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Negative attitude among health care workers toward surrogacy was mainly driven by religious beliefs. However, there are core cultural changes in the community which might alter the attitude toward surrogacy in the future.

Keywords: Attitude; Healthcare Workers; Jordan; Surrogacy.