‘The Right to Have a Family Should Not Be Determined by Your Postcode’: Rural Community Experiences With Fertility Care

OBJECTIVE: Women in rural and remote Queensland face greater challenges in accessing fertility care than those residing in large regional or metropolitan centres of Australia. This study aims to explore the experiences of women accessing fertility care while living in a rural or remote area of Queensland and their perspectives on ways to improve fertility care. SETTING: Interviews were conducted either in-person (Townsville, Emerald, Cloncurry, Mount Isa), via telephone or Microsoft Teams. PARTICIPANTS: Persons currently or previously accessing fertility care, while living rurally in Queensland, identifying as female at birth, being fluent in the English language, and aged 18 years or older participated. DESIGN: Qualitative semi-structured interviews, with data analysed via reflexive thematic analysis, were followed by a descriptive content analysis of participants' ideas for improving rural fertility care. RESULTS: Two main themes with 18 sub-themes emerged from the data. Theme 1: experiences of participants in accessing and receiving fertility care, whilst living in a rural or remote area, and Theme 2: participants' perspectives on how to improve the fertility care experience in rural and remote areas. Residence in a rural or remote location added to the complexity of fertility-related experiences. Rural living influenced fertility knowledge and information access, the accessibility of services, fertility care choice, privacy and social support. Participants articulated strategies from the availability of local information hubs to policy changes aimed at mitigating fertility care postcode-related disadvantage. CONCLUSION: Rural and remote persons accessing fertility care have highlighted not only the challenges experienced but have proposed strategies to improve rural fertility care.