Physical, mental health problems tied to sexual inactivity, dysfunction

Adults who report high levels of interpersonal sexual inactivity may also be suffering from heavy burden of physical and mental health problems, reports a recent study.

Researchers conducted a nationally representative population-based study of 60,958 sexually experienced individuals (aged 15–89 years), whose data were drawn from the 2017–2018 cycle of the Danish Project SEXUS cohort study. The outcomes of interest were interpersonal sexual inactivity as well as male- and female-specific measures of sexual dysfunction.

Logistic regression analysis revealed that men with bad or very bad self-rated health were nearly twice as likely to report interpersonal sexual inactivity than comparators who felt that they had good or very good health overall (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.93, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.66–2.25).

A similar effect was reported in women, though to a slightly weaker degree (adjusted OR, 1.66, 95 percent CI, 1.42–1.94).

Similarly, sexual dysfunctions were more prevalent among those with poor self-rated health. For instance, men who felt that they had bad or very bad health were nearly four times as likely to report erectile dysfunction (adjusted OR, 3.94, 95 percent CI, 3.11–5.00), hypoactive sexual desire disorder (adjusted OR, 3.89, 95 percent CI, 3.04–4.98), and orgasmic dysfunction (adjusted OR, 3.89, 95 percent CI, 2.94–5.16). Similar effects were found for premature ejaculation and genital pain.

Among women, bad or very bad self-rated health increased the odds of lubrication dysfunction (adjusted OR, 2.29, 95 percent CI, 1.83–2.87), orgasmic dysfunction (adjusted OR, 2.25, 95 percent CI, 1.79–2.83), and vaginal cramp dysfunction (adjusted OR, 2.88, 95 percent CI, 1.45–5.71). The same was true for genital pain dysfunction and hypoactive sexual desire disorder.