Common Female Sexual Dysfunction

The kinds of patients a doctor treats often affects his or her sense of how common certain conditions are. This is particularly true of female sexual dysfunctions (FSD), which covers problems like low sexual desire, poor arousal, inability to achieve orgasm, and pain during intercourse.

While most women with these problems consult specialists such as gynecologists, urologists, or psychologists, studies show that many of these doctors don't have an accurate awareness of FSD, much less how to treat it effectively.

One reason for physicians' lack of awareness of FSD is the lack of reliable information about these conditions. The authors of a 2006 review of studies on FSD, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, found that only 11 out of 1,248 studies had study design criteria that were stringent enough to produce reliable results.

From the data included in the 11 studies, however, the authors developed some interesting conclusions. Among women with one or more sexual problems, an average of 64 percent complained of low sexual desire. The next most prevalent problem was difficulty with orgasm, which affected 35 percent of the women studied. Thirty-one percent experienced problems with arousal, and 26 percent had problems with sexual pain. A high proportion of these problems persisted for one month or longer, and 25 percent of women suffered with the condition(s) for at least six months. Two of the 11 studies reported that an average 21 percent of the women studied were distressed by their conditions.

It is important to remember that in most instances, the reports used in these studies were not formal diagnoses but responses to survey questions. Nonetheless, it gives us enough information to conclude that FSD is a common condition that affects a woman's desire to have sex. And while these conditions are very distressing to some women, others remain relatively unaffected by their problems.