Exploration of sexual experience among women with pelvic organ prolapse: a qualitative study

Abstract

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a common problem among women and can adversely affect sexual function. Therefore, designing a study to hear the sound of these women seems necessary. This study aimed to explore the sexual experience of women with POP. Based on a qualitative methodology, 20 untreated women with symptomatic POP were selected by purposive sampling and interviewed from March 2018 to December 2018. To achieve maximum diversity, different participants were selected based on age, education, occupation, type of delivery, type of prolapsed organ, and degree of prolapse. The data were analyzed using the MAXQDA software (Ver.10) and a qualitative content analysis approach. Ethical approval was obtained from Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. Mean (SD) age of women was 44.55 (10.22) years. Mean (SD) Duration of having prolapse was 6.05 (3.7). Qualitative analysis revealed the following five main themes: (I) Experiencing sexual discomfort; (II) damaged genital body image; (III) psychological problem, (IV) Husband's response to prolapse; (V) sexual problem management. These findings indicated that POP had disrupted women`s sexual life. An improved understanding of women's sexual experiences may help health provider better cover women`s unmet sexual needs.

Keywords:

• Pelvic organ prolapse
• sexual dysfunction
• body image
• qualitative analysis

Disclosure statement

None of the authors has anything to disclose.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zahra Hadizadeh-Talasaz

Zahra Hadizadeh-Talasaz, is Ph.D. student of reproductive health, in midwifery department. (TKH) is her supervisor of thesis , (NKHG) and (HE) are her thesis advisors. All of them contributed in doing and writing her thesis and articles. She has worked on women with pelvic organ prolapse (POPs) and its challenges as thesis with qualitative method, it’s been three years she tried to help women with POPs. She emerged in participant’s interview, listened and read them several times. She will continue on working this topic. She focused on sexual topic because their main issue and concern was sexual experience. She will continue working on it more in future. She worked as midwife and instructors for about 8 years and saw and feel women sexual problem with different reason which one of them was POPs, she saw lots of women with POPs and her challenges. So these things made her work on this topic.

Talat Khadivzadeh

Talat Khadivzadeh is one of the active and hardworking professors. She has PhD in Reproductive Health. She is a Faculty member of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. She worked in midwifery department for 24 years. She has been Head of midwifery Department for about 3 years and she is still in this position. She worked on sexual issue and published a lot of articles on this issue. She has been supervisor and advisors of many theses. She has a lot of qualitative research works and articles.

Nayereh Khadem ghaebi

Nayereh Khadem Ghaebi is a Faculty member of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. She has been Head of gynecology Department. She has been supervisor and advisors of many theses. She is a gynecologist for about 30 years. She worked on POPs and sexual issue a lot during these years. She helped first author as advisor in her thesis, helped her in finding participants, and helped her in examination for POPQ.

Hossein Ebrahimipour

Hossein Ebrahimipour is a Faculty member of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and he worked in Department of Management Science and Health Economics. He has 15 year work experience. He is PhD in Health Care Management. He helped first author as advisor in her thesis and helped her in analysis of data, helped her in converting codes into program, helped her in writing program for women with POPs with logic model, which contain sexual issue, providing information, psychological issue, etc.