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Sexual satisfaction may lead to greater well-being in women
Reported October 12, 2009
Women who are happy with their sex lives have higher well-being scores and
more vitality than women who are sexually dissatisfied, Australian
researchers say.
Their study included 295 women, aged 20 to 65, who were sexually active more
than twice a month.
"We wanted to explore the links between sexual satisfaction and well-being
in women from the community, and to see if there was any difference between
pre- and postmenopausal women," study author Dr. Sonia Davison, of the
Women's Health Program at Monash University, said in a news release from the
journal in which the study was published.
"We found that women who were sexually dissatisfied had lower well-being and
lower vitality. This finding highlights the importance of addressing these
areas as an essential part of women's health care, because women may be
uncomfortable discussing these issues with their doctor," Davison said.
She added that the difficulty in interpreting the findings "is that it is
impossible to determine if dissatisfied women had lower well-being because
they were sexually dissatisfied, or if the reverse is true, such that women
who started with lower well-being tended to secondarily have sexual
dissatisfaction. As such, pharmacotherapies aimed to treat sexual
dysfunction may have secondary effects on well-being, and the reverse may be
true."
More than 90 percent of the women in the study said their sexual activity
involved a partner, and that sexual activity was initiated by the partner at
least 50 percent of the time. This means that the sexual activity of the
study participants may have been affected by partner presence/absence,
partner health and sexual function -- factors that weren't addressed in the
study, the researchers noted.
"The fact that women who self-identified as being dissatisfied maintained
the level of sexual activity reported most likely represents established
behavior and partner expectation," senior study author Susan Davis, also of
the Women's Health Program at Monash, said in the news release. "It also
reinforces the fact that frequency of sexual activity in women cannot be
employed as a reliable indicator of sexual well-being."
Source : China Daily |
