Study Objective

We aimed to describe fertility desires in healthy adolescent females and to explore associations of fertility desire with conditions and therapies potentially compromising fertility.

Design

This was a cross-sectional, anonymous survey.

Setting and Participants

A total of 323 female adolescents aged 13-19 years were recruited from clinic waiting areas at a children's hospital. We oversampled on days when clinics serving adolescents with potential fertility compromise were scheduled.

Main Outcome Measures

We measured fertility desire by agreement with the statement “I want to have children someday.” To measure compromised fertility we asked “In the past year, has a doctor, nurse or other medical professional ever talked to you about the possibility that you may have decreased fertility and may not be able to have your own biological child someday?” To measure depression severity, we used a validated scale, the PHQ-9, scores were dichotomized into no/mild and moderate/severe depression.

Results

Mean age was 16.06 ± 1.87 years. Of the 323 participants, 57% identified as Hispanic, 24% as Black, 93.5% as cisgender, 6.5% as transgender/gender diverse, 70% as heterosexual, and 30% as sexual minority. A total of 35% had moderate/severe depression, and 12% had compromised fertility. Overall, 89% wanted children. Fewer transgender/gender diverse than cisgender participants wanted children (67% vs 93%, P < .001), as did fewer with moderate/severe versus no/mild depression (83% vs 93%, P < .05), whereas those with compromised fertility versus those without and heterosexual versus sexual minority participants had similar fertility desires. Transgender/gender diverse identity (odds ratio, 0.33; 95% confidence interval, 0.11-0.97; P < .05) and moderate/severe depression (odds ratio, 0.45; 95% confidence interval, 0.22-0.93; P < .05) were independently associated with lower fertility desire.

Conclusions

We found a high overall proportion of female adolescents desiring future children, and only 2 independent predictors of decreased fertility desire, namely, transgender/gender diverse identity and moderate/severe depression.

中文翻译：

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青春期女性的生育欲：变性者/性别多样化者和沮丧的青少年对儿童的渴望降低。

研究目的

我们旨在描述健康的青春期女性的生育欲，并探讨生育欲与可能损害生育能力的条件和疗法的关联。

设计

十字-sectional，匿名调查

设置

与会人员：323名13-19岁的女性从儿童医院的诊所候诊区招募。在安排为可能生育能力受损的青少年提供服务的日子，我们进行了超采样。

主要观察指标

我们通过同意“我希望有一天要孩子”这一说法来衡量生育欲。为了衡量生育能力受损，我们问“在过去的一年中，有没有医生，护士或其他医疗专业人员与您讨论过生育能力降低，某天可能无法生育自己的孩子的可能性？” 。为了测量抑郁的严重程度，我们使用了PHQ-9量表；分数分为无/轻度和中/重度。

结果

平均年龄为16.06±1.87岁；西班牙裔占57％，黑人占24％；93.5％的顺性，6.5％的变性/性别；70％为异性恋，30％为性少数；35％中度/重度抑郁; 12％的生育能力受损。总体而言，有89％的人想要孩子。跨性别/性别比顺性别参与者更少的孩子（67％vs. 93％，p <0.001），中度/重度v。无/轻度抑郁症的患病率更低（83％vs. 93％，p <0.05），而那些生育能力受损与没有异性恋者以及性少数群体的人有相似的生育欲望。跨性别的性别认同[OR，0.33; 95％CI，0.11-0.97; p <0.05]和中度/重度抑郁[OR，0.45；95％CI，0.22-0.93; p <0.05]与较低的生育欲相关。

结论

我们发现渴望未来的孩子的青春期女性总体比例很高，并且仅有两个独立的预测生育力降低的指标：变性人/性别认同和中度/重度抑郁。