The Psychosocial Impact of Premature Ejaculation on Men.

The Psychosocial Impact of Premature Ejaculation on Men, David L. Rowland, Valparaiso University; Stanley E. Althof, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; Ira D. Sharlip, University of California at San Francisco; Margaret Rothman, Weiwei Feng, and Carol Jamieson, Johnson & Johnson

We assessed personal distress and interpersonal difficulty related to ejaculation, satisfaction with sexual intercourse, sexual relationship, and confidence in men with and without premature ejaculation (PE). Data were obtained from a 4-week multi-center observational study that enrolled subjects with (n = 207) and without (n = 1380) PE. Subjects were classified as PE or non-PE by a clinician according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria. Subjects completed single-item measures of personal distress and interpersonal difficulty related to ejaculation and satisfaction with sexual intercourse, and 2 subscales of the Self-Esteem and Relationship (SEAR) questionnaire. A 2-sample t-test was used to compare responses between subjects with and without PE. Among men with PE, 88% indicated they were moderately to extremely distressed by how fast they ejaculated, compared with 15% of men without PE. 86% of men with PE reported that how fast they ejaculated caused difficulty in their relationship with their partner, compared with 6% of men without PE. Only 31% of men with PE reported good to very good satisfaction with sexual intercourse, compared with 90% of men without PE. Lower SEAR subscale scores were observed in men with vs. without PE: sexual relationship, confidence, and total. Overall, men with PE reported substantial negative psychosocial impact and greater personal distress and interpersonal difficulty related to how fast they ejaculate and less satisfaction with sexual intercourse than men without PE. Single- and multiple-item measures of satisfaction with sexual intercourse showed similar results.