Raising awareness for the diagnosis and treatment of erectile dysfunction in patients with high risk to develop ED

Prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) increases with age and is associated with chronic comorbidities, such as diabetes and hypertension. Even so, ED is underdiagnosed and undertreated. This study investigated the effect of raising awareness of ED diagnosis and treatment in a community setting by physicians' education. Thirty-nine primary care physicians participated in lectures by a trained sexologist, and 20 of them also received computerized lists of their high-risk patients. We matched a control group of 39 primary care physicians who did not receive the intervention; we thus followed 1959 patients in both intervention groups and 1903 patients in the control group. During the period of 6 months before the intervention and 6 months after the intervention, no significant differences were found between the groups in diagnosis of new ED patients, in phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor prescriptions or in referrals to urologists. We therefore suggest that sporadic lectures and computerized patient lists do not significantly affect the physician's behavior.