Smerte og seksualitet: en undersøgelse af hvordan det påvirker kvinders seksualitet at have kroniske non-maligne smerter

Research output: PhD thesis

4905 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Pain and sexuality - the influence of chronic non-malignant pain on female sexuality. Background: Chronic non-malignant pain is often characterized as a condition of essential reduction in quality of life having an affect on the physical, psychological and social function level, without a reduced lifetime. Apart from serious social and economic consequences, chronic non-malignant pain patients often experience problems related to their sexuality. The issue of sexuality has not yet been part of the care and treatment of chronic non-malignant pain patients by routine. Objectives: In all 40 females with 4 different chronic non-malignant pain syndromes and 41 age-matched healthy controls participated in the studies. Methods: The Ph.D. thesis consists of 3 separate studies and method triangulation is adapted. One descriptive explorative qualitative study with a phenomenological/hermeneutic frame of understanding and two quantitative case-control studies with a scientific frame of understanding Results and conclusions: The present study demonstrate that sexuality is close connected to human identity and therefore sexuality is both biological, existential, social and cultural. The patients experience influence on their sexuality in respect to their physical sex life, their body, their personal experience and their relations. The influences appear as negative feelings about the body and poor self-esteem. More than half of the patients lack sexual desire and all the patients have a statistical, significant reduction in frequency of sexual intercourses. Furthermore the study demonstrates significant generalised pressure hyperalgesia in four groups of chronic female pain patients, correlations between degree of pressure hyperalgesia and impairment of some quality of life parameters, and increased pain intensity of the ongoing pain is associated with decreased quality of life.
Original languageDanish
Place of PublicationAalborg
Publisher
Print ISBNs8790562259
Publication statusPublished - 2004

Bibliographical note

Published in co-operation with: Aalborg Sygehus, Aarhus Universitetshospital

Cite this