IMR Press / CEOG / Volume 48 / Issue 5 / DOI: 10.31083/j.ceog4805185
Open Access Original Research
Effect of sexual dysfunction on women’s preference for delivery methods: a social media-based survey
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1 Department of Operating Room Services, Vocational School of Health Services, İstanbul Gelişim University, 34310 İstanbul, Turkey
2 Department of Gynecologic Oncology, Kayseri City Education and Training Hospital, 38080 Kayseri, Turkey
*Correspondence: eseragar@gmail.com (Eser Ağar)
Clin. Exp. Obstet. Gynecol. 2021, 48(5), 1154–1161; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.ceog4805185
Submitted: 10 February 2021 | Revised: 27 April 2021 | Accepted: 18 May 2021 | Published: 15 October 2021
Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Abstract

Background: Although vaginal delivery (VD) is the natural and preferred mode of delivery, cesarean section (C/S) deliveries increased disproportionately during the last decades. We hypothesized that women’s preference of a mode of delivery may have a relationship with their sexual dysfunction. Methods: This survey study recruited women who had already had VD or C/S. We evaluated sexual function via the Golombok-Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction (GRISS) and examined the relationship between possible sexual dysfunction and previous preference for delivery mode. Participants were enrolled from among the author’s Instagram followers. Results: Overall, 190 women were included in the analysis. The median age was 30 years (range:19–45 years). While 86 participants (45.3%) had VD, 104 participants (54.7%) underwent C/S. Overall and subscale GRISS scores were similar in both groups. We also compared the responses to the 28 questions of the GRISS inventory. No significant difference was found between the groups except for question 11 about the vaginal discomfort felt when a finger is inserted. Patients who had VD were less likely to insert their fingers into their vagina without discomfort. Conclusions: With a novel social media recruitment method, we showed that sexual dysfunction was not related to the mode of delivery among participant women. However, we found that patients who had VD were less likely to feel discomfort when they insert their fingers into their vaginas.

Keywords
Sexual dysfunction
Cesarean section
Vaginal delivery
Mode of delivery
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