Pelvic floor disorders associated with higher-level Sexual dysfunction in Kersa district, Ethiopia

Objective: This study aimed to assess prevalence of female sexual dysfunction and its association with pelvic floor disorder in a large scale, community based study.
Methods: A total of 2389 women who are married and still in union at the time of the study were drawn from 3432 ever married women participated in to pelvic floor disorder study. Study participants were selected through multistage sampling procedure based on Kersa Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Kersa HDSS) database. Female sexual function index (FSFI) questionnaire was employed to collect data. The index score <26.55 was used as a cut off point for sexual dysfunction. The content of the tool was validated and internal reliability was checked by Cronbach’s alpha. Poisson regression model with robust variance estimation was used to investigate relationship between pelvic floor disorders and sexual dysfunction.
Result: From the total 2389 women participants, 1127(47.0 %( 95% CI: 45.0%, 49.0%)) of them had sexual dysfunction. Sexual desire disorder is the most prevalent disorder (72.0%; 95% CI: 70.0%, 74.0%). After controlling confounding factors, the prevalence of female sexual dysfunction was found to be 56% (adjusted prevalence ratio, 1.56; 95% CI: 1.44, 1.69) higher with women with pelvic floor disorder as compared to women without pelvic floor disorder.
Conclusion: In rural community of Kersa, about half of the women suffer from sexual dysfunction and it is significantly associated with pelvic floor disorder. This would call for an urgent intervention against PFD to maximize the women’s sexual and reproductive health.