Study objectives: To examine sperm donors' motivations and emotional reactions to the role of donors and to measure their willingness to provide information about themselves to recipients and offspring.
Design: A prospective trial in which the 26 subjects who were actively functioning as sperm donors in our fertility clinic at the time of investigation were asked to fill in a questionnaire and return it anonymously and voluntarily.
Main results: 8% of the donors stated purely altruistic motivation, 32% purely financial and 60% a combination of both. The acceptance rate for providing non-identifying, phenotypic, descriptive information to recipients is 76%, for providing medical information it is 60% and the provision of psychosocial information is accepted by 28% to 40%, depending on the item. 20% of donors are willing to continue donation if the present rules of anonymity are revoked.
Conclusions: Most donors do not seem to feel any close relationship to donor offspring and at least 60% found anonymity to be essential for their further functioning as donors.