COVID-19 pandemic and the quality of couples’ sexual relationships

Abstract

Aim: COVI-19 pandemic causes stress between individuals, and this stress can affect the quality of couples’ sexual relationships. This study aimed to examine the quality of women’s sexual life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted at May-June 2020. 235 sexually active women aged 18 to 51 years participated in this study. The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) was used to examine women’s sexuality from six different perspectives: desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. Due to quarantine restrictions, questionnaires were emailed to participants. Results: The participants’ age range was 18 to 51, with an average of 29.6 ± 6.08 years. The total FSFI score with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 26.75 had an average of 18.12 ± 6.23. Since the cut-off value for female sexual dysfunction is 26.0, it can be concluded that, on average, participants had poor function and quality of sexual intercourse in the previous four weeks during the lockdown. The values of the FSFI score were significantly different according to the age of the woman (p-value = 0.003), the age of the man (p-value = 0.005), and months of marriage (p-value = 0.006). The woman’s age (Sig. = 0.008), the man’s age (Sig. = 0.004), and the month of marriage (Sig. = 0.02) had a significant and negative correlation with the total FSFI score. Conclusion: This study showed that the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown reduced women’s sex life quality. Our results also show that the older women and men are, the lower their sexual satisfaction will be, which may be due to the higher risk of COVID-19 for the elderly.