Impact of governmental support to the IVF clinical pregnancy rates: differences between public and private clinical settings in Kazakhstan-a prospective cohort study

Abstract

Objectives: Infertility rates have been increasing in low-income and middle-income countries, including Kazakhstan. The need for accessible and affordable assisted reproductive technologies has become essential for many subfertile women. We aimed to explore whether the public funding and clinical settings are independently associated with in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinical pregnancy and to determine whether the relationship between IVF clinical pregnancy and clinical settings is modified by payment type.

Design: A prospective cohort study.

Setting: Three private and two public IVF clinics located in major cities.

Participants: Women aged ≥18 seeking first or repeated IVF treatment and agreed to complete a survey were included in the study. Demographical and previous medical history data were collected from a survey, while clinical data from medical records. The total response rate was 14%.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: Clinical pregnancy was defined as a live intrauterine pregnancy identified by ultrasound scan at 8 gestational weeks. The outcome data were missing for 22% of women.

Results: Out of 446 women in the study, 68.2% attended private clinics. Two-thirds of women attending public clinics and 13% of women attending private clinics were publicly funded. Private clinics retrieved, on average, a higher number of oocytes (11.5±8.4 vs 8.1±7.2, p<0.001) and transferred more embryos (2.2±2.5 vs 1.4±1.1, p<0.001) and had a statistically significantly higher pregnancy rate compared with public clinics (79.0% vs 29.7%, p<0.001). Publicly funded women had on average a higher number of oocytes retrieved and a statistically significantly higher probability of clinical pregnancy (RR=1.23, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.47) than self-paid women, after adjusting for covariates. There was no statistically significant interaction between clinical setting and payment type.

Conclusions: Private clinics and public funding were independently associated with higher IVF clinical pregnancy rates. There is also a need to further investigate whether the increase in public funding will influence clinical pregnancy rates.

Keywords: gynaecology; health policy; obstetrics; public health.