A controlled pilot study to test the online intervention Self:Cervix focusing on cervical pain, numbness, sexual pleasure and well-being

ABSTRACT

There is a need for more holistic and multidisciplinary approaches to treat female sexual dysfunction disorders. New programmes to improve female sexual experiences or help with sexual dysfunctions have been created. In a controlled pilot study, we evaluated Self:Cervix, an online intervention aimed to increase women’s sexual pleasure and reducing genital pain and/or numbness through guided self-massage, mindfulness techniques to increase pleasure, and learning about consent. To this end, 36 women in the intervention group and 25 in an untreated control group (CG) filled in online questionnaires twice across a 6-month interval. There were no significant effects on numbness and pain in the repeated measures analysis of variance. However, compared with the control group, women in the intervention group showed significantly increases in desire (F = 7.739, p ≤ .008, η² = .132), arousal (F = 7.114, p ≤ .010, η² = .122), and psychological well-being (anxiety: F = 12.227, p < .001, η² = .172; depression: F = 4.887, p ≤ .031, η² = .076; somatisation: F = 5.465, p ≤ .023, η² = .086) and more positive attitudes towards women’s genitals. To conclude, participants benefited from Self:Cervix in some areas, but more research is needed with more sensitive measures to capture more subtle changes in genital sensitivity and numbness.

KEYWORDS:

• Female sexuality
• cervix
• evaluation
• controlled study
• online intervention

Acknowledgments

We thank all the women participating in this study. We would also like to show our gratitude to Olivia Bryant for her support and openness to conduct this evaluation of Self:Cervix.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katharina Weitkamp

Katharina Weitkamp, PhD, senior research assistant at the University of Zurich in clinical psychology couples, families and children and adolescents. She is a systemic therapist and her research interests range from psychotherapy research to female sexuality.

Ineka Hänisch

Ineka Hänisch, MSc, studied psychology at the MSH Medical School and wrote her master’s thesis on Self:Cervix.

Sophie-Charlott Heesch

Sophie-Charlott Heesch, MSc, studied psychology at the MSH Medical School and wrote her master’s thesis on Self:Cervix.