The impact of socioeconomic characteristics on Sudanese women's use of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine for self-management of infertility.

Abstract

Background: Although Sudanese women have rich experience in the use of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine, literature discussing the use for self-management of infertility is scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to fill this gap by examining the associations of the socioeconomic characteristics of Sudanese women with, as well as their predictability of, the use of traditional, complementary and integrative medicine for self-management of infertility.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 203 infertile women attending infertility clinics in Khartoum State, Sudan. The interviewers administered the questionnaire in two parts: the first sought to collect data on self-management strategies for infertility, and the second sought to collect personal data from the respondents. Associations between socioeconomic characteristics and the use of self-management strategies for the treatment of infertility were assessed via one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), whereas determinants of that usage were assessed via simple linear regression.

Results: The majority of the respondents were in the two middle-aged groups (28-37 years and 38-47 years). Few of the respondents had less than just a primary education (3.0%), while those with higher education represented almost half of the sample (49.8%). ANOVA revealed that while only education level was independently associated with the factors that influence Sudanese women's selection of infertility self-management strategies (p = 0.008 and p = 0.030), all socioeconomic characteristics were associated with the types of strategies Sudanese women use for self-management of their infertility. The simple linear regression results revealed that all socioeconomic factors had predictive power (p < 0.05) when correlated with Sudanese women's perceptions of strategies used for self-management of infertility.

Conclusions: Socioeconomic factors that potentially impact Sudanese women's strategies used in the self-management of infertility were identified. The results highlighted the associations of Sudanese women's strategies used in self-management of infertility with the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents. The study offered policymakers with information to re-examine the loose or relaxed rules governing traditional, complementary and integrative medicine use in the societies of developing countries in general and Sudan in particular, as the culture of these societies seems to encourage the use of self-management strategies.