Psychological Perceptions of Women With Sexual Arousal Disorder: A Qualitative Study in Iranian Culture

Objective: Psychological perceptions are concerned with how a person perceives and psychologically frames life with an illness. The current study sought to examine the psychological perceptions of women suffering from Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder in the setting of Isfahan, Iran. Materials and methods : The study was done according a qualitative design, and it was conducted in Isfahan, Iran, from July 2018 to February 2019. Twenty in-depth interviews were performed with 20 patients who were recruited on the purposeful method. The thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the data. The data were organized using MAXQDA software (version 12). Results: The following four themes were extracted: (i) Dysfunctional cognition, which includes five sub-themes: attention bias, belief bias, memory bias, perceptual bias, and cognitive distortion; and (ii) Relationship and partner factors, which include four sub-themes: psychological maltreatment, aggression, deception, and betrayal.; (iii) lack of life skills, which includes four sub-themes: poor problem-solving, poor sexual knowledge, poor understanding and intimate relationships, and immature defense mechanisms; and (iv) lack of motivation and genuine interest, which includes two sub-themes: forced marriage and lack of initial affection and attraction to the husband. Conclusion: Internal and interpersonal factors were shown to have a role in the creation of sexual arousal disorder in Iranian women, according to the study. As a result, designing scenarios for cognitive bias modification and educational programs for improving interpersonal skills would be beneficial.