Chronic health conditions have a “cumulative impact” on the sexual function of middle-aged and older women, American researchers report.
They found that in their study group, a woman’s chances of having sexual problems increased with the number of comorbidities she had.
Low sexual desire affected 59% of the women. Fifty-three percent of the women had sex less than once a month. Forty-seven percent had low overall sexual satisfaction.
While past research has examined the ways that chronic health conditions affect sexual function, most of those studies have focused on one condition at a time, such as diabetes mellitus or inflammatory bowel disease. This research focused on multimorbidities and sexual function.
The study involved a multiethnic group of 1,997 community-dwelling women (mean age 60.2) in California. The project was an ancillary study of a larger project called the Reproductive Risks of Incontinence Study. All of the women were covered by the Kaiser Permanente Northern California health care plan.
Using questionnaires, the researchers collected data on a variety of chronic health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, endometriosis, and cancer. The most common health conditions reported were hypertension (53%), hyperlipidemia (44%), and arthritis (38%).
The women also answered questions about their sexual health over the previous three months. Such questions covered desire, sexual interest, frequency of sexual activity and degree of sexual satisfaction.
In addition, each woman had a short physical examination.
The data showed that 71% had two or more chronic health conditions. Nineteen percent had five or more.
The researchers found that women with more than one health condition were more likely to report low desire, less than monthly sexual activity, and low satisfaction.
Depression and urinary incontinence were independently associated with these three sexual issues as well.
After adjusting for chronic conditions, age played a role in low desire and less frequent activity, but not satisfaction. This lead the researchers to suggest that overall satisfaction was influenced more by health status than by age.
“These findings suggest that clinicians and researchers need to take into account the cumulative effects of chronic conditions on women’s sexual quality of life in middle and older age, rather than simply considering individual conditions in isolation,” the authors wrote.
They acknowledged several limitations, noting that they did not ask about the health and sexual function of the women’s partners, nor did they address participant-partner relationships. Also, they did not consider the severity of the women’s health conditions. These factors could have affected their results.
The study was first published online in August in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Resources
The Journal of Sexual Medicine
Appa, Ayesha A., MD, et al.
“The Impact of Multimorbidity on Sexual Function in Middle-Aged and Older Women: Beyond the Single Disease Perspective”
(Full-text. First published online: August 22, 2014)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsm.12665/full