On behalf of the German Cancer Aid, this cooperative project investigates how younger patients with newly diagnosed cancer can be optimally counseled in dealing with fertility issues.
Cancer and its treatment can be associated with a variety of problems, including fertility problems. Therefore, counseling cancer patients regarding fertility-preserving measures is a central task that involves complex medical, psychosocial, and ethical issues.
This project aims to optimise oncofertility counseling for patients with a younger cancer diagnosis. To this end, factors influencing the decision on fertility preserving measures as well as ethical and psychosocial aspects in the counseling process will be identified.
To get an overview of the available information on this topic, the Leibniz Institute for Media Research conducts an analysis of information from medical institutions and physicians as well as from various online services (including forums and social media). Besides ethical aspects, the objectivity, quality and reliability of the information are considered.
Based on the findings, we will identify what needs to be done to optimise oncofertility counselling in terms of target-group-specific and reliable information provision.
Project Focus
There are four work packages in the project that focus on the following areas:
- Identifying factors that influence the decision of patients/partners about fertility-preserving measures (work package 1);
- Identifying basic ethical aspects of oncofertility counselling from the perspective of patients/partners and experts (work package 2).
- Analysing the current state of information available in the media on the topic of oncofertility and the need for action in the direction of reliable and target group-oriented information (work package 3);
- Integrating the findings and developing recommendations to improve the counselling situation (work package 4).
Photo by Anja Bauermann on Unsplash
