Planned oocyte cryopreservation (POC): a longitudinal study of patient experience

The aim of this study was to examine POC patient experience at multiple stages throughout the course of a treatment cycle.

Email invitations were sent to 359 POC patients from November 2024 to August 2025 for this longitudinal, survey-based cohort study. Surveys were distributed at three different points throughout a POC treatment cycle: pre-cycle, mid-cycle and post-cycle. The survey questions related to the experiences of the participant in relation to eight core aspects of clinical treatment. Participants were asked to rate their experience (difficulty) and feelings on a scale of 1 to 10. Responses of first and subsequent cycle POC participants were compared for each aspect of treatment.

A total of 101 participants were recruited (28%). Mean age was 34.8 years; all had completed secondary school, with 91.1% completing a bachelor's degree or above. The experience of first and subsequent cycle patients was similar for each component of treatment, with the exception of self-administered injections (SA Injections). In the pre-cycle survey, first-cycle respondents gave SA Injections a significantly higher expected difficulty score (mean = 6.08) compared to subsequent cycle patients (mean = 4.79, p = 0.006). After completing their cycle, participants reported recovery from the egg collection to be the most difficult aspect of treatment (mean difficulty = 5.41), with 43.93% of respondents giving it their highest ranked difficulty score.

POC patients found most aspects of treatment less difficult than they had initially anticipated, with recovery from the egg collection being the most difficult aspect of treatment.