[Psychological factors and penile blood supply in patients with erectile dysfunction]

To explore the psychological factors and blood supply to the penis in ED patients.

From August to November 2018, we obtained Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) scores and conducted an Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) investigation among 106 ED patients in our Department of Andrology, followed by the test of intracavernosal injection of the vasoactive agent (ICI-VAA) and color duplex Doppler ultrasonography (CDDU). According to the results of ICI-VAA and CDDU, we divided the patients into a normal and an abnormal group, compared their item and total scores on SCL-90 with the national norm by t-test and analyzed the distribution of personality types in different groups by Chi-square test.

The results of ICI-VAA and CDDU showed 42 cases to be normal and the other 64 abnormal. Compared with the normal group, the abnormal cases exhibited significantly decreased peak systolic velocity (PSV) in the left and right corpus cavernosum (［30.90 ± 6.83］ vs ［19.39 ± 5.07］ cm/s, P < 0.01; ［30.74 ± 7.00］ vs ［18.98 ± 4.57］ cm/s, P < 0.01), but increased end-diastolic velocity (EDV) in the left corpus cavernosum (［1.77 ± 2.38］ vs ［3.21 ± 2.78］ cm/s, P < 0.01). The ED patients undergoing ICI-VAA and CDDU obtained remarkably higher SCL-90 scores than the national norm on depression (1.70 ± 0.64 vs 1.50 ± 0.59, P < 0.01), anxiety (1.62 ± 0.56 vs 1.39 ± 0.43, P < 0.01), compulsion (1.86 ± 0.61 vs 1.62 ± 0.58, P < 0.01), hostility (1.65 ± 0.66 vs 1.48 ± 0.56, P < 0.01), phobia (1.33 ± 0.45 vs 1.23 ± 0.41, P = 0.02), and psychoticism (1.61 ± 0.55 vs 1.29 ± 0.41, P < 0.01) as well as a higher total score (1.61 ± 0.48 vs 1.44 ± 0.48, P < 0.01). The patients with normal results of CDDU got markedly increased scores on anxiety (1.60 ± 0.53, P < 0.01), compulsion (1.83 ± 0.63, P = 0.02) and psychoticism (1.61 ± 0.48, P < 0.01), and so did those with abnormal results of CDDU on depression (1.73 ± 0.65, P < 0.01), anxiety (1.64 ± 0.59, P < 0.01), compulsion (1.88 ± 0.60, P < 0.01), hostility (1.68 ± 0.75, P < 0.01), phobia (1.35 ± 0.44, P = 0.02), psychoticism (1.61 ± 0.59, P < 0.01) and an increased total score as well (1.63 ± 0.51, P < 0.01). Statistically significant differences were not found in either the item scores or the total score on SCL-90 (P > 0.05), nor in the distribution of the EPQ personality types between the normal and abnormal cases (χ2 = 1.12, P = 0.77).

The personality types of ED patients are mainly phlegmatic and melancholic, and their psychological problems chiefly include depression and anxiety, which are more serious in those with insufficient penile blood supply.