Prevalence of Sexual Dysfunction in Females with and Without Schizophrenia

INTRODUCTION- Schizophrenia is an illness that may influence every aspect of the person’s life. Rates of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) in schizophrenia the rates reported have been between 30 and 80%. The aim was to identify attribution (locus of control) and sexual dysfunction among female with schizophrenic disorder and females without schizophrenia and to study and to compare the sexual dysfunction and attribution in schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic women. METHODS- This was a cross sectional, hospital-based study and was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of SRM Medical college and health sciences. Women between the ages of 21 to 45 years, diagnosed with schizophrenia by ICD 10 criteria (World Health Organization, 1992) attending the outpatient services, who were under remission, and were in marital relationship for at least six months were approached for the study. Schizophrenia was assessed using PANSS while sexual dysfunction in females was assessed using female sexual functioning index. Sexual attribution was assessed by using Rotter’s locus of control. RESULTS- 45 women belonging to cases had sexual dysfunction as assessed by FSFI whilst 13 had had scored for sexual dysfunction is the control group. 5 in the cases and 37 in controls did not have sexual dysfunction. X2 test was carried out and the difference was very highly statistically significant at 0.001level. A very high frequency of sexual dysfunction in this group calls for added focus in to this aspect for a better quality of life for the patient. The relationship between locus of control, sexual dysfunction as assessed by FSFI and PANSS scores where higher scores denote a severe form of illness were subjected to co-relation analysis. Locus of control is identified to be external when the scores are higher than the cut-off point. CONCLUSION-Sexual dysfunction is one of the aspects which affect the overall quality of life and needs to be studied on a larger sample and the relationship between illness related, treatment related and environment related factors need to be studied. Individual disturbances in the various aspects of sexual dysfunction also need to be studied