Couples’ Sexual Communication and Dimensions of Sexual Function: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Research and clinical data have shown that couples with sexual problems report a lack of sexual communication. However, no published meta-analyses have evaluated the relationship between sexual communication and sexual function. This meta-analysis examines the correlation between couples’ sexual communication and dimension of sexual function across 48 studies. Sexual communication was positively associated with sexual desire (r = .16), sexual arousal (r = .21), lubrication (r = .17), orgasm (r = .23), erectile function (r = .19), less pain (r = .12), and overall sexual function (r = .35). The effect sizes for sexual desire (r = .21; r = .12) and orgasm (r = .26; r = .16) were higher for women than for men. For overall sexual function, studies with married participants (r = .47) had a larger effect size than studies with participants with multiple relationship types (r = .31) or than studies with dating participants (r = .11). Effect sizes were larger for studies conducted outside of the United States (r = .39) compared to studies conducted in the United States (r = .12). We discuss the importance of addressing the relationship between sexual communication and sexual function, as well as future directions for research in this area.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Population Research Center (P2CHD042849) and a grant from the Training Program in Population Studies awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (T32HD007081). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Notes

¹ Vevea and Hedges used the term reasonable because the corrected effect sizes produced by the weight functions can be considered “corrected” only if we assume the weight functions are an accurate representation of underlying distribution of p values and probability (weights) of studies with those p values being published.

² We obtained the scores of individualism and indulgence from Hofstede’s Web site for the cultural dimension model (https://www.hofstede-insights.com/). In addition to providing an overview of the model, the Web site has an online tool to compare countries across all six dimensions of the cultural dimension model. A description of the cultural dimension model and how the scores are calculated can be found in Hofestede et al. (2010).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849, T32HD007081).