The experience of sexuality among a group of Spanish older adults with and without chronic pain

Abstract

Chronic pain and associated treatments can negatively affect sexual functioning and satisfaction. This study aims to assess whether there are differences in some components of sexuality between older adults with and without a diagnosis of chronic pain. The sample consisted of 132 students from the Senior Citizens’ University of the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón, a 61.4% were women and a 38.6% were men, with a mean age of 61.4 years old. The participants were divided according to whether or not they had been diagnosed with any chronic pain condition, a 47.7% were classified as subject with chronic pain and a 52.3% as subject without chronic pain. They were administered the expanded version of the SEX-PAIN questionnaire (Ballester et al., 2022) that assesses different aspects of sexual life. The results indicated that 96.8% of people without chronic pain and 91.5% of people with chronic pain considered sexual intercourse a very important aspect. However, 20.3% of people without chronic pain and 39.3% of people with chronic pain reported that they were not at all satisfied with their sexual lifes, and 16.7% and 24.1%, respectively, strongly agrees that would change many things about their sexual life. People with chronic pain obtained greater interference in some aspects of sexual functioning such as interest (p<.001), arousal (p=.014) or sexual satisfaction (p=.035) than people without chronic pain. Otheraspects related to the affection, sexual communication or some parameters of the sexual response such as orgasm, do not obtain statistically significant differences between the two groups. Sexuality is an area that must be adequately evaluated and treated when approaching people with chronic pain.