Prevalence of Infertility and its Associated Factors among the Eligible Couples of Central Kerala

Introduction: Infertility is a personal tragedy for millions of couples world-wide and has very definite physical, psychological and social implications. Objectives: To find the prevalence of infertility and to explore the association between selected clinical and sociodemographic factors with infertility in Arpookara Panchayat, Kottayam, Kerala. Method: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 860 eligible couples selected using simple random sampling technique, from all the 4 subcentre areas. Sociodemographic and medical/surgical details of both male and female partner were collected by semi-structured interview schedule. The couples were said to have infertility when they had either primary or secondary infertility. Pearson Chi-square test / Fisher’s Exact test was used to find the association of various factors with infertility. Results: The prevalence of infertility was 10.3%, with 5.6% primary infertility and 4.7% secondary infertility. Factors that were found significantly associated with infertility were couples belonging to lower socioeconomic status, joint family, women marry at age >35 years, diabetes mellitus in women, pelvic inflammatory diseases, uterine fibroids, polycystic ovarian syndrome, abdominal pelvic surgeries in women, varicocele, mumps in men, oligospermia, men with education level less than high school, smoking, alcohol and family history of infertility in men. Conclusion: One tenth of the population included in the study had infertility. The predictors for infertility were lower socio-economic class, number of years after marriage (5-9 years), smoking in men, oligospermia, varicocoele, mumps in men, age at marriage (≥35 years) in women, polycystic ovary syndrome, pelvic inflammatory disease and diabetes mellitus in women