Fertility and Sterility
Volume 87, Issue 1 , Pages 107-112, January 2007

Relationship between hypoactive sexual desire disorder and aging

Presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, Atlanta, Georgia, October 28-31, 2004.

  • Richard D. Hayes, B.Sc. (Hons.)

      Affiliations

    • Office for Gender and Health, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Australia
    • School of Population Health, Department of Public Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests: Richard D. Hayes: School of Population Health, Department of Public Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3010.
    • ,
  • Lorraine Dennerstein, M.B.B.S., Ph.D.

      Affiliations

    • Office for Gender and Health, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Australia
    • ,
  • Catherine M. Bennett, Ph.D.

      Affiliations

    • School of Population Health, Department of Public Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia
    • ,
  • Patricia E. Koochaki, Ph.D.

      Affiliations

    • Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals Inc, Mason, Ohio
    • ,
  • Sandra R. Leiblum, Ph.D.

      Affiliations

    • Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine, UMDNJ, Piscataway, New Jersey
    • ,
  • Alessandra Graziottin, M.D.

      Affiliations

    • Centre of Gynecology & Medical Sexology, H. San Raffaele Resnati, Milano, Italy

Received 24 January 2006; received in revised form 25 May 2006; accepted 25 May 2006. published online 02 November 2006.

Objective

Explore the association between Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) and aging. The American Foundation of Urologic Disease and the American Psychiatric Association stipulate that HSDD is only diagnosed when both low sexual desire and sexually related personal distress are present.

Design

Community-based, cross-sectional study.

Setting

Europe (UK, Germany, France, Italy) and the USA.

Patient(s)

Women aged 20-70 in sexual relationships participating in the Women’s International Study of Health and Sexuality (n=1998 Europe, n=1591 USA).

Intervention(s)

No interventions were administered.

Main Outcome Measures

Self-administered questionnaire that included two validated instruments: Profile of Female Sexual Function© measured sexual desire; Personal Distress Scale© measured sexual distress. Women with low desire and distress were considered to have HSDD.

Results

The proportion of European women with low desire increased from 11% amongst women aged 20-29 years to 53% amongst women aged 60-70 years. The proportion of American women with low desire displayed a trend towards an increase with age. In the 20-29 year age group 65% of European women and 67% of American women with low sexual desire were distressed by it. This decreased to 22% and 37%, respectively, in the 60-70 year age group. In Europe and the USA the prevalence of HSDD in the population did not change significantly with age (6-13% in Europe, 12-19% in the USA).

Conclusions

The proportion of women with low desire increased with age while the proportion of women distressed about their low desire decreased with age. Consequently, the prevalence of HSDD remained essentially constant with age. This may explain why no association between HSDD and age is often reported in the literature.

Key Words: Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, aging, low desire, sexual distress, prevalence, community-based

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 Conflict of interest: Patricia E. Koochaki is an employee of Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals Inc. Lorraine Dennerstein has received consulting fees from Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Sandra R. Leiblum and Alessandra Graziottin have served as research consultants and also paid speakers for Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Catherine Bennett and Richard Hayes have no competing interests to declare.Financial support: The WISHeS was funded by Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The data was made available to the authors for this analysis.

PII: S0015-0282(06)03165-7

doi:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2006.05.071

Fertility and Sterility
Volume 87, Issue 1 , Pages 107-112, January 2007

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