Objectives: The present study was designed to examine the attitudes towards oocyte cryopreservation among healthcare providers working in hospitals across specialties and potential influencing factors.
Design: A cross-sectional study.
Setting: The questionnaire was distributed among Chinese healthcare providers via the Credamo platform.
Participants: There were 877 respondents recruited from 8 April to 8 May 2022, among whom 160 were identified as unqualified because of inconsistency between the IP and work addresses.
Outcome measures: Individual attitudes towards oocyte cryopreservation under four different settings, familiarity with oocyte cryopreservation and perceived risks about oocyte cryopreservation of healthcare providers were measured using a self-designed questionnaire.
Results: There were 877 respondents recruited, and 717 were identified as qualified respondents. Two latent classes of healthcare providers characterised by different attitudes towards oocyte cryopreservation under four different settings were identified, the supportive and reluctant. Familiarity with oocyte cryopreservation had a significant direct effect on perceived risks, with better familiarity predicting lower perceived risks (β=-0.102, p<0.05). Perceived risks showed a significant direct effect on participants' attitudes towards oocyte cryopreservation, with higher perceived risks predicting a more reluctant attitude (β=0.165, p<0.001).
Conclusions: The majority of healthcare providers held a reluctant attitude towards oocyte cryopreservation of unmarried women for non-medical reasons, which might relate to their worries about the risks to offspring's health and lack of knowledge about a reproductive technique.
Keywords: Health Equity; Health Services Accessibility; Health policy; MEDICAL ETHICS.
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