Comparison of the Comparison of the effect of integrated psychotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy on sexual and psychological distress in women with sexual desire / arousal disorder

sexual interest/arousal disorder in women causes emotional and psychological damage and decreases marital quality and satisfaction and increases marital burnout. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the newly developed treatment of sexual desire / arousal disorder and cognitive-behavioral therapy on sexual and psychological distress in women with sexual desire / arousal disorder.

 The research method was semi experimental with a pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included women with sexual desire / arousal disorder who referred to counseling centers in Isfahan 2020-2021, from which 45 people were selected by purposive sampling and randomly assigned to three groups (15 people in each group). After selecting and assigning the subjects to the three groups of the study, all three groups were evaluated with the Female Sexual Distress Scale- Revised (FSDS-R) and short scale of depression, anxiety and stress (DASS-21). Then the experimental groups underwent of weekly intervention and the control group did not receive any intervention. At the end of the intervention sessions, the members of all three groups were re-evaluated with research tools.

The results of analysis of covariance showed that both integrated psychotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy affect sexual and psychological distress and individuals in the experimental groups received lower scores in the post-test of sexual and psychological distress than those in the control group(P<0.05). The results also showed that there is a significant difference between the two interventions in terms of effectiveness on research dependent variables. In the variable of sexual distress, efficacy is more effective with the newly developed treatment of sexual desire / arousal disorder, but in relation to psychological distress, cognitive-behavioral therapy has been more effective(P<0.05).

According to these results, it can be said that the integrated psychotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy are effective in modulating sexual and psychological distress in people with sexual arousal disorder and the psychotherapy protocol of sexual arousal disorder can be used as a suitable treatment option along with other psychotherapy models of this disorder.