Responsibility, Prevalence and major factors of infertility: A cross-sectional study in Karachi

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted to target the infertile couples visiting to private and government hospitals in Karachi from 2012 to 2014. The aim of the study is to know the higher prevalence of infertility among the married couples and to determine the major factors causing infertility. Detailed evaluation had been made to assess each cause. Likewise, in females, we analyze menstrual history, parity, past surgical history, family history and body weight, years of marriage, complete hormonal profile and ultrasonic measurements. On the other hand, in males; we conduct complete analysis of semen, coital frequency, addiction to any substance and medical history. Overall 475 infertile couples were targeted in the study, in which 175 pairs were included, who full fills all the inclusion criteria, i.e. with complete medical investigations and excluded the remaining with incomplete reports in females and in males who denied semen evaluation. The included couples are divided into four groups in order to determine the responsibility of childlessness between the two, a) female, b) male, c) both and d) unexplained infertility. Our study concludes that in the Karachi the majority of females are responsible for unproductiveness up to 41.1% rather than the male up to 25%, whereas 16.5% both the couples are involved in it and 17% has unexplained screened problems. Moreover, our study further explores the occurrence of primary infertility which is twice, i.e. 71.1% than secondary infertility, i.e. 22.8% in Karachi city. However, the major female factor is PCOS which is observed in more than half of the females in both primary and secondary incidents. While, lower sperm count, inefficient sperm motility and higher rate of abnormal sperm are the key male factors.