On Swedish Women's Distressing Sexual Dysfunctions: Some Concomitant Conditions and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Objectives: To explore the associations between women's distressing sexual dysfunctions and different aspects of life satisfaction together with women's concomitant socio-psychological characteristics. Thus, this descriptive article does not discuss causalities. Methods: A nationally representative sample of sexually active Swedish women aged 18–65 years in a heterosexual steady partner relationship participated in 1996 in a combined structured interview/questionnaire investigation. Personal sexual distress caused by low sexual interest, insufficient lubrication, orgasm dysfunction, dyspareunia, and vaginism was classified as manifest and mild. Concomitant conditions explored were perceived health, stability of domestic situation, perception of male partner's sexual functions/dysfunctions per se, and some socio-demographic factors. Satisfaction with life as a whole and with 10 different domains of life were reported by using the LiSat-11 checklist. Results: Main results were that a multitude of the independent variables were univariately associated with manifest and, to a lesser extent, mild distressing sexual dysfunctions. This was particularly true for satisfaction with partner relationship and for male's sexual dysfunctions. By performing multiple logistic regressions, the numbers were markedly reduced. The resulting statistical models still contained sexual partner's sexual dysfunctions and satisfaction with partner relationship as dominant covariants of most distressing sexual dysfunctions. Conclusions: Reported low level of satisfaction with partner relationship and male sexual dysfunctions per se are likely to co-occur with manifest but, to a lesser extent, mild distressing sexual dysfunctions in Swedish women aged 18–65 years.