Treatment Planning and Continuation Intervention
The Treatment Planning and Continuation Intervention was developed to support healthcare professionals and patients discuss and plan multi-cycle fertility treatment.
People starting fertility treatment (e.g., assisted reproductive techniques, ART) generally have strong intentions to continue with treatment until they become parents, and about 60% of people will attain this goal if they do multiple cycles of ART. However, intentions often get derailed in the face of adversity.
Most people complete only one or two cycles of ART even when funding is not an issue and about 22% to 35% stop treatment because they feel they cannot face the burden of another ART cycle, often by delaying indefinitely the start of the next cycles. This kind of distress and passive decision-making can lead to future regret over decisions made about parenthood.
This project was concerned with developing and evaluating the feasibility of implementing the Treatment Planning and Continuation Intervention or TCPI in fertility clinics.
Project Team
Publications
- Harrison, C, Gameiro, S, Boivin J, “Qualitative evaluation of the acceptability and feasibility among healthcare professionals and patients of an ART multi-cycle treatment planning and continuation intervention prototype”, Human Reproduction, 2023
- Harrison C, Gameiro S, Boivin J, “Patient willingness, preferences and decision making about planning for three complete cycles of IVF/ICSI treatment.”, Human Reproduction 36(5) deab040, 2021
- Harrison C, Boivin J, Gameiro S, “Talking about possible IVF/ICSI failure and need for multiple cycles in treatment planning: qualitative investigation of multi-cycle planning and its acceptability to patients and staff.”, Human Reproduction 37(3) deab278, 2022