Variables affecting the decision for numbers of embryos transferred.

摘要

We thank Dr. Levens for his interest in our work and appreciate the opportunity to clarify certain issues related to patient's attitudes toward embryo transfer (ET) reported in our study (1). Our research attempted to identify possible factors that might influence patients' decision making concerning single and multiple ET.In our report, we emphasized that patients were interviewed after ET and that no effort was made to influence actual transfer choices. Therefore, it was not surprising (as Dr. Levens correctly notes) that no patients in the study actually chose single ET. We think that this simply highlights the current resistance to this option among North American patients. Our study was exploratory in nature and not an intervention. We wished to examine how the patients' own initial beliefs, values, and attitudes had shaped their views of transfer and whether and how the presentation of risk information affects these attitudes. Whether a change in attitudes leads to a change in behavior (a different transfer decision) is a very important but separate question. It is possible that patient responses to risk information might be different in some ways if presented before rather than after transfer. However, it seems more likely that actual transfer decisions (the gold standard) are likely influenced by added factors besides the patients' own beliefs and values, (i.e., the physician's beliefs and values).