A Study on the Sexual Dysfunction for Diabetic Women

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the sexual dysfunction of diabetic women in order to provide basic data contributed in nursing intervention.

Method: A convenience sample consisted of 67 subjects with diabetes who attended outpatient department of 2 university hospitals. After verbal consent was obtained, subjects were asked to complete a questionnaire including BISF-W developed by Taylor et al. Data were collected from April 27 to May 22, 2006, and were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, oneway ANOVA using SPSS 12.0 program.

Results: This study discovered that the degree of sexual dysfunction of women with diabetes was high, and in particular that most of the women with diabetes did not have satisfactory sex life because of lack of vaginal lubrication, lower sexual desire, lower orgasm, and sexual pain. The test of differences in sexual dysfunction according to demographic and disease-related characteristics revealed that significant differences existed only with regard to menopause and age.

Conclusion: As the sexual function of women varies widely among individuals, we would like to emphasize the importance of sexual counseling and education programs to improve the quality of life of diabetic women to prevent or relieve their sexual dysfunction.