Brain-Behavioral Systems and Psychological Distress in Women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder

Background: Hypoactive sexual desire disorder is the most common sexualdisorder among women, which interferes with their various functions. Activityof brain-behavioral and psychological distress systems are considered amongfactors affecting sexual function.Objectives: The present study aimed to compare women with hypoactive sexualdesire and normal women in terms of brain-behavioral and psychologicalsystems.Materials and Methods: In the present causal-comparative study, 37 womenwith hypoactive sexual desire and 37 normal women were purposively selectedwith maximum matching in terms of demographic variables from amongeligible women attending health centers across Alborz Province in Iran. Datawere collected using the following scales: behavioral inhibitory/activationscales (BIS/BAS) and depression, anxiety, stress (DASS) and were analyzedusing multivariate analysis (MANOVA) in SPSS software version22.Results: The results obtained showed that mean score of women withhypoactive sexual desire was significantly lower compared with normal womenin brain-behavioral activation system (drive, response to reward and pleasureseeking), but significantly higher in behavioral inhibitory system. Furthermore,women with hypoactive sexual desire obtained higher scores which indicateworse conditions than normal women in the components of psychologicaldistress including anxiety, depression and stress.Conclusion: Women with hypoactive sexual desire have weaker behavioralinhibitory/activation systems and higher levels of anxiety, depression, and stresscompared to normal women. Given these results, it is recommended that greaterattention be paid to factors such as brain-behavioral and psychological distresssystems in prevention and treatment programs for hypoactive sexual desire.

Keywords:

Sexual Dysfunctions , Psychological , Women