Men with rheumatic diseases raise concerns on parenting, sexual health

A recent study has reported concerns by men regarding family planning, parenting, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH), which they rarely talk about with their rheumatologists.

“Our study suggests that some men’s SRH information needs are incompletely addressed in the rheumatology clinical setting,” the researchers said.

This study recruited men aged 18‒45 years who were diagnosed with at least one rheumatic disease and used at least one antirheumatic medication from rheumatology clinics. Participants engaged in semistructured phone interviews. In addition, the researchers developed a codebook based on the interview transcripts, which was used to conduct an inductive thematic analysis.

Twenty participants were included in the analysis, and most of them were heterosexual and had at least one child. The most common diagnoses among these men were spondyloarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Four themes arose from the interviews. First, men reported having family planning concerns, particularly related to the heritability of their disease, their fertility, and potential effects of their medications on their offspring’s health. Second, participants felt that fatigue, disability, and/or pain from their diseases either impaired or would impair their abilities to parent.

Third, men failed to talk about sexual dysfunction with their rheumatologists despite believing that it emerged from their diseases or antirheumatic drugs. Finally, participants rarely discussed any family planning, parenting, or SRH issues with their specialists. Of note, gender discordance with rheumatologists did not influence men’s comfort in discussing such issues.