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Published on: May 30, 2025
Evolution of sexual functioning of men through treated and untreated depression
É-J Laforgue1, G Busnel2, D Lauzeille3
1Addictology and Liaison-Psychiatry Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nantes, 85, rue Saint-Jacques, 44093 Nantes, Fance; Clinical Pharmacology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nantes, 9, quai Moncousu, 44093 Nantes, Fance; Inserm UMR 1246, Sphère, Methods in Patients-centered outcomes and Health Research, Nantes and Tours University, 22, boulevard Benoni-Goullin, 44200 Nantes, Fance.
Objectives:
Depression as well as a treatment by antidepressant are factors that may interfere with sexuality. Due to this complex relationship between depression, antidepressant and sexuality, it is difficult to incontestably establish the exclusive accountability of a treatment or of a psychiatric disorder on sexual dysfunctions. The main purpose of the SADD (for Sexuality, Anti-Depressant and Depression) study is to evaluate sexual dysfunctions in depressed men treated with antidepressant or not.
Methods:
Participants of this transversal, observational study were men aged over 18 years old, suffering from unipolar major depressive disorder and treated by a psychiatrist, with or without antidepressant. Assessment of sexual functioning through three times: euthymia (before depression), untreated depression and treated depression if applicable was performed based on the ASEX scale.
Results:
Seventy patients were included. Eight percent of euthymic patients presented a sexual dysfunction (average score on the ASEX=12.4) whereas 56% of untreated patients presented a sexual dysfunction (average total score on the ASEX=17.7) and 62% (34/55) of patients treated with antidepressant (average total score on ASEX=18.5) (P<0.001). Sexual functioning of men receiving treatment is not significantly different to that among men not receiving any antidepressant, even if patients treated with antidepressant reported that they had a better mood than those untreated.
Conclusions:
Our results reveal a high prevalence of sexual dysfunction within the framework of major depressive disorder and its treatment and underlines the complex relationship between major depressive disorder, antidepressant and sexuality.
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