Article Text
Abstract
Background Psychosocial aspects of HIV infection and use of medications may be associated with dyspareunia. In middle-aged women there’s also problems associated with climacteric symptoms that may influence the presence of dyspareunia, a topic not fully investigated in women with HIV in the ageing process.
Methods Cross sectional study involving 273 women aged 40–60 years. From these 128 women informed having sexual activities with vaginal penetration and were included in the present study. The evaluation instrument was based on the Short Personal Experiences Questionnaire (SPEQ). Sociodemographic, clinical, behavioural, reproductive, HIV issues and partner-related factors were assessed. Dyspareunia was defined as pain during sexual intercourse, graded from 1 to 6, where a score of 2 or more represented the presence of dyspareunia. A bivariate analysis was performed in which dyspareunia was considered the dependent variable according to the independent variables. The qui-square test was applied with Yates correction or Fisher’s exact test.
Results A total of 41.4% (53) of these women reported dyspareunia. It was associated with low formal education (p < 0.10), vaginal dryness (p < 0.001), urinary incontinence (p = 0.02), muscular pain (p = 0.013), partner status HIV+ or unknown (p = 0.02), and use of statins (p > 0.05 and < 0.10). Dyspareunia was less prevalent in women who were in use or previously used biovir (p < 0.05) or efavirenz (p < 0.05). compared with non-users of these medications.
Conclusions Dyspareunia was common in this cohort of women associated with social, health, partner and medication factors and measures should be adopted to minimise the repercussions of these factors on sexuality.
- aging
- dyspareunia
- HIV KL01,