Hormonal contraception and female sexual function

B. Zilaitiene; L. Ciaplinskiene

Summary: To establish the relations of women’s sexual function with social factors and use of hormonal contraception.

Methods: There has been performed a pilot study. 20–43 years old participants with regular menstrual cycles (22–35 days) were randomly selected and have been interviewed. The test group consisted of 113 women who use any of hormonal contraception method. The control group consisted of 51 women not using hormonal contraception. Participants had to fill two questionnaires: socio-demographic and medical factors questionnaire prepared by the author and the female sexual function index (FSFI).

Results: The FSFI desire domain score of the women who used contraceptive agents comparing with women who did not use contraceptive agents was 3.95 (SN 1.08) vs 4.33 (SN 0.92; P=0.006), their FSFI arousal domain score was 4.19 (SN 1.48) vs 4.59 (SN 1.59; P=0.005), the FSFI lubrication domain score was 4.72 (SN 1.68) vs 5.32 (SN 1.2; P=0.02). The women’s who had had permanent sexual partners comparing with women’s who hadn’t had permanent sexual partners mean of FSFI arousal domain score reached 4.4 (SN 1.45) vs 3.3 (SN 1.98; P=0.01), their mean of FSFI lubrication domain score reached 5.03 (SN 1.46) vs 3.55 (SN 2.17; P=0.003), the mean of FSFI pain domain score reached 4.88 (SN 1.61) vs 2.77 (SN 2.22; P<0.001). The means of FSFI arousal domain (P=0.05) and orgasm domain (P=0.04) scores were significantly different taking into consideration the BMI groups. The means of the women whose BMI <18.5 kg/m² were significantly higher than of those whose BMI 18.5–24.9 and ≧30 kg/m².

Conclusion: The presence of permanent sexual partners had a positive effect on the women’s sexual function.

Table 1 FSFI scores in participants according to investigative groups (dependent on having permanent sexual partner).
	Permanent sexual partner	Permanent sexual partner
	Had	Didn’t have
Scale	Mean (S.D.)	Mean (S.D.)	P value
Desire	4.11 (1.04)	3.6 (0.98)	0.06
Arousal	4.4 (1.45)	3.3 (1.59)	0.01
Lubrication	5.03 (1.46)	3.55 (3.17)	0.003
Orgasm	4.4 (1.72)	3.75 (2.27)	0.3
Satisfaction	4.91 (1.29)	4.36 (1.32)	0.06
Pain	4.88 (1.61)	2.77 (2.22)	<0.001
FSFI total	27.85 (6.92)	23.77 (7.83)	0.02

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.

Endocrine Abstracts

P903