Frequently asked questions

This study was designed by researchers at the University of Zurich to gain insight into attitudes towards and knowledge about various aspects of fertility, images of the family and family planning in Switzerland.

As an integral part of the University Research Priority Programme ‘Human Reproduction Reloaded | H2R’, the CHARLS (Swiss (CH) Assisted Reproduction Longitudinal Study) survey is intended to help to critically examine the social, ethical and legal effects of progress in reproductive medicine, with regard to its potential, risks and limitations.

This is of particular interest to researchers and policymakers because the methods of reproductive medicine are developing rapidly, and there is as yet very little information about how this is perceived and used by the population. It is important that we are able to produce evidence-based knowledge on this very under-researched area.

The results will be published in the form of articles, book chapters or books, and will thus be primarily available to other researchers. Besides this, there are plans to establish a long-term network and an information centre for future research in this area.

The results will also be shared with the wider public, however, so that the population can develop a better understanding of the legal situation and use of reproductive medicine in Switzerland and can be part of the dialogue. Press releases and other kinds of public relations work are planned for this purpose.

Finally, the results of the survey can also help with political decision-making, since they will allow decision-makers to respond to needs and uncertainties within the population and react with appropriate measures. Our research can serve as a basis for developing guidelines and recommendations for political and social institutions.

6 out of the 7 faculties of the University of Zurich are involved in the research project. You can find out more about the ‘Human Reproduction Reloaded | H2R’ project here. The project is a University Research Priority Project (URPP), which means that researchers from a wide range of subjects work together on a large project. The aim of the URPPs is to generate new and in-depth knowledge in innovative and socially relevant fields, by studying a topic from as many different perspectives as possible and involving experts from all the relevant subjects, as far as this is possible.

Each wave of the CHARLS panel survey is the product of a collaboration between the disciplines involved. These include law, medicine, sociology, psychology and ethics. The idea is that this will help us to understand, as fully and multiperspectivally as possible, the diverse social challenges arising from the rapid development of assisted reproductive technologies.

The plan is to repeat the survey at regular intervals (roughly every 2 years); so this is a multi-wave panel survey. The panel survey, the Swiss (CH) Assisted Reproduction Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), focuses on questions about the knowledge and use of medically assisted reproductive technologies and attitudes towards such technologies. You do not have to commit to participating in future waves of the survey. Your participation is voluntary at all times, and you can stop at any time or write to tell us that you no longer wish to be contacted. Your address details will then be deleted immediately. However, we would be very grateful if you were willing to help us out in the longer term!

Yes, you are under no obligation to take part in this study. However, every response is extremely valuable for our research and will enable us to draw conclusions about the overall picture in Switzerland. So if there are just individual questions that you would prefer not to answer, you can skip these.

Unfortunately, many of the questions are in fact very personal, since the topic of the research is very personal and individual. We need these questions because they give us valuable insight into decisions about reproduction and experiences in this area.

Obviously, you are not obliged to answer the questions. Every answer is very valuable to us, but of course your well-being is much more important. If you feel uncomfortable answering a question, feel free to skip this question. Your participation is extremely valuable, even if some answers are missing!

Definitely! We’re interested in when, why and how people in Switzerland want to have children (and how many), or don’t want to or can’t have children. We consider all lifestyles as equal and are equally interested in all of them.

There are three reasons for this:

• Firstly, certain filter questions have to be asked again to ensure that you are only asked the questions that are relevant to you (e.g. no questions about your partner if you’ve said that you are single).
• Secondly, we’re interested in changes in views and experiences over time, which we can only see if we ask the same questions again at a later point in time.
• Thirdly, in the first wave not all the participants were asked the same questions. This is why there may be duplications at some points.

We are interested not only in assisted reproduction, but also in everything that could be connected to it. Personal attitudes such as religiosity and spirituality are particularly likely to influence family and reproduction and therefore also assisted reproduction.  These connections are of interest to us as researchers.

Your answers to our survey will be treated confidential all the time. We will store names and e-mail-addresses (if indicated) separately from the survey responses. At the end of the study, which comprises several survey waves, or at your request, your contact details will be deleted immediately.

No, never.

Your contact details are stored in a file encrypted with VeraCrypt, on a project server with several layers of protection at the Faculty of Law of the University of Zurich. Only three members of staff have access to this data and we are obliged to treat your personal information with the utmost care and respect. We are not permitted to share the data with third parties at any time.

Your responses will never be shared with third parties in their raw form. There are only two ways your answers can reach others:

1. In the form of carefully prepared results (for scholarly publications or for the interested public), in which your answers are anonymized and appear among many others. Firstly, your answers cannot be attributed to you, and secondly, in most cases the focus is on the average of all results or of certain subgroups (e.g. a possible difference of opinion between men and women), and not an individual answer. This is because our research centres on opinions and experiences within the population as a whole. For this we need an overall impression, arising from many different perspectives.
2. Your responses will eventually be published anonymously in the form of a dataset, which researchers can use to find answers to their own research questions. However, we will only release the data for other researchers once we are certain that all information that could potentially be misused to identify someone has been removed (in most cases this is impossible anyway, unless someone gives very specific and unique answers in the survey). The anonymized dataset does not allow anyone to identify you and is only available to researchers who can prove that they are conducting research at a university at the time of their request, and who sign a data use contract.

For the purpose of comprehensibility, we sometimes use terms such as "man" and "woman" or "mother" and "father", implying they are cisgender. However, we are aware and would like to point out here that the reality of gender and family is more diverse. By participating, you will help make this diversity visible.

The project ‘Human Reproduction Reloaded | H2R’ is largely funded by the University of Zurich. Individual subprojects are partially funded by the Swiss National Science Fund (SNF). The panel survey is also supported by the Federal Statistical Office (BfS).

If you have a question that isn’t answered here, you can contact us by email at charls@humanreproduction.uzh.ch.

The survey was examined and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zurich. If you would like to express ethical concerns to a body independent of the research team, you can contact the president of the ethics committee.

Prof. Dr. Christopher Hopwood
Psychologisches Institut
Binzmühlestrasse 14/34
8050 Zürich
E-mail: hopwood@psychologie.uzh.ch