BACKGROUND

The overall purpose is to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected individuals who have been or are going through assessment or treatment for involuntary childlessness, and their processes of trying to have children. Previous research on involuntary childlessness in relation to the pandemic has mainly been medical and quantitative, and there has been a lack of qualitative studies that explore the subject area on a more indepth level. The study is a project in ReproUnion, Challenge 5.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this qualitative study, we used semistructured interviews to collect data. The study includes individuals who have been or are going through assessment or treatment for involuntary childlessness in Sweden and Denmark during the pandemic. Participants were recruited from both public and private care. 26 individuals took part in the study, of which 18 women and eight men. The participants were between 24 53 years old and the sample consisted of both heterosexual and same sex couples. The interviews addressed experiences of assessment and treatment of involuntary childlessness during the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to e.g.access to care, socioeconomic factors and intimate relationships.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The preliminary results show that the pandemic has affected the patients in many ways and made an already challenging process even more difficult.Obstacles mentioned are for example limit access to care with longer queues and uncertainty regarding when the treatment can be resumed. Many of the respondents has also suffered from the absence of partners during care visits. Furthermore, the fear of being infected by the Corona virus, which could cause the treatment to be postponed, has led to isolation and often a weaker support from family and friends. However, these negative consequences have affected patients to varying degrees, some worse than others. The results also show that the pandemic brought some positive consequences. For example, the isolation has been perceived as a relief for some as they easier could avoid being exposed to other people’s pregnancies as well as attending baptisms and baby showers.

“It has been extremely stressful for me to hear those messages [about delays of the treatment from the clinic], as it has taken so long to get started , and, yes, I am not getting any younger. That's how I feel. For every six months that goes by, I have kind of lost a chance to get pregnant.”

"We are young and have no underlying health problems, but we still really had to isolate ourselves, and we were very afraid that we would catch a cold or suffer from Corona so that the treatments would be cancelled. So, it was all the time that you were afraid to meet people, and you were afraid to meet your friends”

“I think the biggest impact was that I was not allowed to accompany and that I was not allowed to participate, also in combination with this stress that you could get sick. That was probably thebiggest impact for me and my wife.”

CONTACT

Ida Elisabet Hall

Research assistant, social worker, master in sexology

Centre for Sexology and Sexuality Studies, Malmö University

ida.hall@mau.se

BACKGROUND

The overall purpose is to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected individuals who have been or are going through assessment or treatment for involuntary childlessness, and their processes of trying to have children. Previous research on involuntary childlessness in relation to the pandemic has mainly been medical and quantitative, and there has been a lack of qualitative studies that explore the subject area on a more indepth level. The study is a project in ReproUnion, Challenge 5.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this qualitative study, we used semistructured interviews to collect data. The study includes individuals who have been or are going through assessment or treatment for involuntary childlessness in Sweden and Denmark during the pandemic. Participants were recruited from both public and private care. 26 individuals took part in the study, of which 18 women and eight men. The participants were between 24 53 years old and the sample consisted of both heterosexual and same sex couples. The interviews addressed experiences of assessment and treatment of involuntary childlessness during the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to e.g.access to care, socioeconomic factors and intimate relationships.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The preliminary results show that the pandemic has affected the patients in many ways and made an already challenging process even more difficult.Obstacles mentioned are for example limit access to care with longer queues and uncertainty regarding when the treatment can be resumed. Many of the respondents has also suffered from the absence of partners during care visits. Furthermore, the fear of being infected by the Corona virus, which could cause the treatment to be postponed, has led to isolation and often a weaker support from family and friends. However, these negative consequences have affected patients to varying degrees, some worse than others. The results also show that the pandemic brought some positive consequences. For example, the isolation has been perceived as a relief for some as they easier could avoid being exposed to other people’s pregnancies as well as attending baptisms and baby showers.

“It has been extremely stressful for me to hear those messages [about delays of the treatment from the clinic], as it has taken so long to get started , and, yes, I am not getting any younger. That's how I feel. For every six months that goes by, I have kind of lost a chance to get pregnant.”

"We are young and have no underlying health problems, but we still really had to isolate ourselves, and we were very afraid that we would catch a cold or suffer from Corona so that the treatments would be cancelled. So, it was all the time that you were afraid to meet people, and you were afraid to meet your friends”

“I think the biggest impact was that I was not allowed to accompany and that I was not allowed to participate, also in combination with this stress that you could get sick. That was probably thebiggest impact for me and my wife.”

CONTACT

Ida Elisabet Hall

Research assistant, social worker, master in sexology

Centre for Sexology and Sexuality Studies, Malmö University

ida.hall@mau.se

Syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen om vilka förutsättningar personal inom socialt arbete har för att kunna arbeta med säkrare sex med särskilt riskutsatta ungdomar och unga vuxna. För att undersöka detta har en enkätundersökning genomförts som skickats ut till fältverksamheter samt öppenvårdsmottagningar som i någon utsträckning tar upp området alkohol och droger. Enkäten har skickats ut till 89 verksamheter i Skånes samtliga 33 kommuner. Sammanlagt har 229 svar inkommit, vilket motsvarar en svarsfrekvens på 60,1 procent. Här framkommer att personalen har begränsade förutsättningar att arbeta med säkrare sex och att de organisatoriska resurserna för att stödja detta arbete brister. Materialet har analyserats utifrån Michael Lipskys teori om gräsrotsbyråkrater och visar sammantaget att såväl kunskap som organisatoriska resurser är centrala för att göra det möjligt för personalen att arbeta kring säkrare sex. Dessutom är det betydelsefullt att personalen är intresserad av området och att de känner sig bekväma med att arbeta med säkrare sex. De faktorer som visat sig ha den starkaste direkta effekten på personalens arbete kring säkrare sex är att ha möjligheten att själv avsätta tid för att arbeta med säkrare sex, att uppleva att säkrare sex diskuteras på arbetsplatsen och att personligen vara intresserad av att arbeta med säkrare sex.

The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge about social workers’ opportunities to work with safer sex among at-risk adolescents and young adults. To investigate this issue, a survey has been sent to outreach work and non-institutional offices whose work focuses on alcohol and drugs to some extent. The survey was sent to 89 workplaces distributed throughout 33 municipalities in the region of Skåne in southern Sweden. Altogether 229 responses were collected, a response rate of 60.1%. The study shows that social workers have limited opportunities to work with safer sex issues and that the organizational resources to support this work are weak. Michael Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats was applied to the data, with the analysis indicating that knowledge and organizational resources are key to enabling work with safer sex. It is also important that the personnel are interested in the subject and that they feel comfortable working with safer sex. The factors found to have the strongest direct effect on the personnel’s work with safer sex are: having the possibility to set aside time to work with safer sex, experiencing that safer sex is discussed at the workplace and being personally interested in the subject.