Can anxiety and depression serve as primary factors associated with erectile dysfunction after coronavirus disease?

We investigated the association between anxiety and depression and erectile dysfunction (ED) in patients who developed ED after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

This study included 228 men who were hospitalized in pandemic wards between July 2021 and January 2022 with positive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test results for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 RNA. All patients responded to a Turkish version of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) questionnaire to determine erectile status. Patients were administered the Turkish version of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7) questionnaires the day after hospitalization and also during the 1st month after diagnosis of COVID-19 to compare the COVID-19 situation with the previous situation.

Patients' mean age was 49.66 ± 13.3 years. The mean pre-COVID-19 erectile function score of 28.65 ± 1.33 decreased to a mean post-COVID-19 score of 26.58 ± 4.23, which indicates a statistically significant difference (p=0.03). Post-COVID-19 ED occurred in 46 (20.1%) patients; 10 (4.3%) patients had mild, 23 (10.0%) had mild-to-moderate, 5 (2.1%) had moderate, and 8 (3.5%) patients had severe ED. The mean pre-COVID-19 BDI score (which indicates depression) of 1.79 ± 2.45 increased to a mean post-COVID-19 score of 2.42 ± 2.89 (p<0.01). Additionally, the mean pre-COVID-19 GAD-7 score of 4.79 ± 1.83 increased to a mean post-COVID-19 score of 6.79 ± 2.52, which indicates a statistically significant difference (p<0.01). We observed a negative correlation between the increase in BDI and GAD-7 scores and the decrease in IIEF scores (r=0.426, p<.001, r=0.568, p<.001, respectively).

Our study highlights that COVID-19 can cause ED and that disease-induced anxiety and depression serve as primary contributors to ED.