Summary of the Recommendations on Sexual Dysfunctions in Women
January 2010
in “
The Journal of Sexual Medicine
”
Studysummary The authors updated recommendations on diagnosing and treating women's sexual dysfunctions, emphasizing a comprehensive assessment approach, while noting the need for further multidisciplinary research. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
In 2010, a report provided comprehensive recommendations for diagnosing and treating sexual dysfunctions in women, based on the consensus of over 186 experts from 33 countries. It emphasized a biopsychosocial approach, considering predisposing, precipitating, and maintaining factors, and recommended a detailed medical and psychosocial history, with a pelvic genital examination in specific cases. Psychosexual treatments, hormonal treatments, and nonhormonal treatments were discussed, with cognitive-behavioral therapy showing improvements in sexual desire and function. Hormonal treatments like testosterone therapy were noted to increase sexual satisfaction in postmenopausal women, but with caution due to limited long-term safety data. The report highlighted the need for more randomized controlled trials to evaluate treatments, assigning a Grade C recommendation to most due to limited evidence. For sexual pain disorders like Provoked Vestibulodynia and vaginismus, non-medical interventions received a Grade B for clinical usefulness. The report concluded with a call for individualized management and further research into sexual dysfunction treatments for women with various medical conditions.
