Psychological and sexual functioning in women with vulvar vestibulitis

Objective: The purpose of the study was to compare psychological and sexual functioning in women with vestibulitis with healthy controls. It was hypothesized that women with vestibulitis would experience greater psychological stress and sexual dissatisfaction than controls. Study design: Fifty-two women with vestibulitis recruited from a vulvovaginal disease clinic and 46 healthy controls recruited from an outpatient gynecology clinic completed five standardized measures of psychological and sexual functioning. Multivariate analyses of variance and covariance were used to examine group differences. Results: Women with vestibulitis reported significantly higher scores than controls on the measures of depression (p ≤ 0.001), psychological distress (p ≤ 0.001) and sexual depression (p ≤ 0.001). They reported significantly lower scores on the measures of sexual satisfaction (p ≤ 0.001), sexual behavior (p ≤ 0.001) and sexual self-esteem (p ≤ 0.01). Conclusion: The results of this study highlight the importance of addressing psychological distress and sexual dissatisfaction in women with vestibulitis.