Search strategy
This systematic review was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42022380418) and
followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and
Meta-Analyses guidelines (Table S1). A systematic search was performed
in online academic databases: PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, and
ScienceDirect. Search terms were a combination of free text and
controlled vocabulary (ie, MeSH terms) for each database, including:
“infertility”, “childlessness”, “sterility”, “infecundity”,
“infertile”, “prevalence”, “point prevalence”, and “period
prevalence” All studies published between database inception and Oct
30, 2022. To find additional potentially eligible studies, a secondary
search of the gray literature was performed on Google Scholar and
checked the reference lists of relevant studies.