Postpartum Female Sexual Dysfunction and Related Factors in Iranian Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Female sexual dysfunction in the postpartum period is one of the major health problems of women. The aim of this study was to determine the postpartum sexual dysfunction and its related factors in Iranian women.

In  this systematic review and meta-analysis study, Iranian articles published at PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Magiran, Scientific Information Database (SID), IranMedex, IranDoc were searched by keywords related to "postpartum sexual function". The inclusion criteria were as the studies, which used standard tools to measure sexual function, and included observational studies (from 1990 to 2019). Egger statistical test was used to investigate the probability of bias in the publication bias. Data were analyzed using STATA 14 software.

Finally, after quality assessment by Newcastle Ottawa instrument, 12 articles were analyzed. The overall mean score of sexual function after sensitivity analysis was 22.30 [95% confidence interval (CI): 21.8-22.8], the lowest score was in the sexual desire dimension as 3.52 (95% CI, 3.2-20-3.84), and in the sexual satisfaction dimension, it was 4.28 (5 95% CI: 4.4-4.03). Factors related to sexual function included individual and demographic factors, medical factors, and emotional and psychological factors.

 The postpartum sexual function in Iranian women is influenced by several factors; so it is recommended to pay attention to the sexual dimension of women's postpartum counseling, and to plan interventional measures in this regard.