Sexology as a profession in the United Kingdom

To identify clinicians working within the field of sexual and psychosexual medicine and to identify and quantify the diversity of problems seen by specialist physicians, nurses and therapists working in the UK and compare these with French clinicians, a prospective 89 item questionnaire was sent to 2352 practitioners in the UK. Eight hundred and fourteen completed questionnaires were returned detailing clinician practice and training and the presenting problems of patients in their clinical practice. The commonest presenting problem amongst men was erectile dysfunction (562/814) followed by emotional and relational problems. The commonest problem for women was loss or absence of sexual desire and was of a similar magnitude to that of erectile dysfunction in men. The substantial majority of clinicians working with patients and clients with sexual problems are non-physicians from a diverse professional training background which contrasts with a high number of physicians in France. The high incidence of emotional and relational problems in both men and women would suggest that clinical services require considerable psychotherapeutic consultation space within the service provision.