Note: This is a repost from Primary Care Health Sciences

We are working to ensure future infertility research has the necessary relevance to inform clinical practice. 

Research studies testing new treatments for infertility have collected and reported many different outcomes and outcome measures. For example, when a new infertility treatment is being tested, one researcher may decide to measure pregnancy (one outcome) and another researcher may only measure live birth (a different outcome). When complete, the results from both studies cannot be easily compared or combined to see which treatments work best. This is a barrier to improving care women and their families receive.

Our aim is to overcome this barrier, by developing a common set of outcomes that all researchers testing new treatments for infertility can use. Our partnership is bringing together people with experience of infertility, healthcare professionals, and researchers.

We aim to ensure that those who fund and undertake research evaluate new treatments using outcomes which really matter. If you have experienced infertility, either as a patient or family member, or have expertise in infertility as a healthcare professional, you can help to ensure that those who fund and undertake future research answer questions which really matter.

If you have experienced infertility or have professional expertise in treating or researching infertility, you can help by becoming a citizen scientist. We want to know what outcomes you think are important in a three-round questionnaire. Each survey will take no more than 15 minutes to complete.

Whoever or wherever you are please help to improve infertility research.

We are drowning in research that is singularly lacking in impact. Our approach will ensure that those who fund and undertake future research measure outcomes which really matter, securing the necessary reach and relevance to inform future clinical practice and improve care.