Sexual partner satisfaction of the patients with chronic renal failure

Sexual satisfaction is one of the important components in social life. It can be spoiled by many factors such as chronic diseases. Therefore, chronic diseases may spoil partners' sexual satisfaction. In this study, we aimed to evaluate sexual partner satisfaction of the patients with chronic renal disease.

Forty-three couples attempted the study. A total of 24 female (age: 32-67) and 19 male (age: 25-72) partners answered the questionnaire forms. Turkish validated form of "international index of erectile function (IIEF)" for male participants and Turkish validated form of "female sexual function index (FSFI)" for female participants were used. Partners who have chronic diseases were excluded. Female partners were divided into premenopausal (n = 11) and postmenopausal (n = 13) groups.

Mean score of male partners was 15.4 (10-22) and overall female partners was 13.5 (4-20). The mean score of premenopausal female partners was 14.8 (10-20) and postmenopausal group was 12.4 (4-18). Generally, all the scores for bothersome questions were low for all male and female partners. There was no statistically significant difference between the scores of premenopausal and postmenopausal female partners' groups (p > 0.05). After male patients had used 20 mg tadalafil, their premenopausal partners' FSFI scores improved significantly.

The study shows that chronic diseases such as chronic renal failure affect not only the patients' sexual life but also their partners' sexual life, and it is clearly seen that the decrease of sexual satisfaction is not age demanding. Evaluating sexual functions of both patients with chronic renal disease and their partners should be a routine procedure in urological practice.