Spinal cord injury and women's sexual life: case-control study.

Study design :This is a case-control study.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to estimate the magnitude of association between spinal cord injury (SCI) and women's quality of sexual life and sexual function.

SETTING: This study was conducted in the Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

METHODS: From the referral university-based clinics, we used simple random sampling to recruit 62 women: 31 women with SCI and 31 women without SCI. Socio-demographic and reproductive traits questionnaire, Sexual Quality of life-Female (SQOL-F), Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM) were completed using telephone and face-to-face interviews in the cases and controls. After univariate analyses, multivariate linear and proportional odds regression models were conducted to investigate the relation between SCI and women's quality of sexual life, as well as sexual function.

RESULTS: The mean age of cases and controls was 35.42±6.51 and 33.77±4.02 years. Most women were high school-educated and housewives. Adjusting for probable confounders, the proportional odds regression model showed a significant relationship between the spinal cord injury (AOR=4.2, 95% CI: 1.8-9.2), non-college-educated (AOR=3.1, 95% CI: 1.2-5.9) and employed (AOR=1.8, 95% CI: 1.1-1.8) variables and being in one of the moderate or poor quality of life classes. Scores of SQOL-F and FSFI domains, except satisfaction, were significantly worse in cases versus controls (P<0.001).

CONCLUSION: Although our participants showed low sexual dysfunction, they tended to report moderate to poor quality of sexual life. Our findings support the implication that sexual rehabilitation must be provided for women with SCI soon after injury.