A Comparative Study on Sexual Life between Women and Their Spouses after Hysterectomy

Lim, Heoyn Suk; Yoo, Eun Kwang

Abstract

The purpose of this comparative study is to find out women and their spouses' sexual life and the factors affecting on their sexual life after women's hysterectomy. The data were the 110 questionaires which were collected from the participants, the 55 women who had undergone a hysterectomy due to gynecologic disease or benign tumor of genital organs and their spouses from January 1, 1999 to January 30, 2002 in one general hospital located in Seoul, Korea. Questionnaires were mailed to couples, who agreed to participate on the study and self reported questionnaires returned in the pre-stamped envelopes. And personal visits were made for those couples who did not respond. Tools for Sexual life and characteristics of sexual activities were reconstituted by the author based on Kim(1996) and Chang(1988)'s tools and were reviewed by a nurse specialist. Data analysis was done by SPSS 10.0 program using frequency, percentage, mean, S.D. Pearson correlation coefficient, t-test, oneway ANOVA and multiple regression. The results of this study are as follows; 1.Of all female subjects, 80% had experienced hysterectomy below the age of 50. 2.72.8% of female subjects and 67.3% of male subjects did not receive any sexual education & counseling before and after the surgery. More than 60% of both female and male subjects answered that it was necessary to have a sexual counseling. And 40% wanted to receive sexual counseling from a professional sexual counselor. 3.More than half of couples started their first coitus within 4 weeks after the surgery. And 88.9% of females and 85.2% of males answered that they were experiencing orgasms with their sexual relationship. 4. Influencing factors on the satisfaction level of sexual life were couple's intimacy and sexual discomfort in women and couple's intimacy and sexual knowledge in spouses. These factors explained the 33% and 24% of total variance respectively. In conclusion, the result suggests that it is necessary for couples to receive a professional sexual education and counseling to improve couples' quality of life. It is also necessary for institutions to use prepared nurses by receiving sexual counseling and education program as a professional sexual counselors or educators so as to provide individualized sexual education and counseling for their clients.