Infertility Counselling: the ISSUE experience of setting up a telephone counselling service

This paper explores the role of telephone counselling for people experiencing fertility problems. It examines the first nine months of the evening telephone counselling service offered by ISSUE (The National Fertility Association). Records of the service were analysed for number, duration and nature of calls. The results suggest that there is significant demand for such a service and that this demand has grown in line with availability. All counsellors working on the service were interviewed. Qualitative analysis of the interviews generated key themes concerning gender and culture, supervision and training, counselling process issues, boundaries and managerial issues. In addition, specific issues about counselling in the field of reproductive medicine were highlighted. Findings are discussed in relation to implications for service provision in this area of health care. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.