A controlled study of combined hormonal and psychological treatment for sexual unresponsiveness in women

Thirty couples, whose presenting complaint was general sexual unresponsiveness in the female partner, were randomly allocated to one of three treatment groups: testosterone plus sexual counselling; placebo plus the same form of counselling; or testosterone alone. Therapy was time-limited to 16 weeks, and assessments were conducted pre-treatment, at the end of treatment and at a four-month follow-up. There were no notable differences in outcome between the two counselling groups, both of which showed significantly greater improvement on a number of measures of sexual and general interpersonal adjustment and attitude change than the group that received testosterone alone. Although a significant improvement with testosterone alone was found on ratings of vaginal lubrication, frequency of sexual interest and coital pleasure, significant changes on the same variables were also apparent in the other two groups. On no measure was testosterone alone shown to be significantly superior to either of the other two treatments. These results, in accordance with those of other recent related research, therefore indicate no significant advantages in using testosterone with an otherwise unselected sample of sexually unresponsive women.