Comparison of self-awareness and sexual satisfaction scores before and during the COVID-19 in married women covered by health centers in 2020

Self-awareness and sexual satisfaction can be affected by the fear following the spread of disease. The study was done to compare self-awareness and sexual satisfaction scores before and during the COVID-19 period in married women covered by health service centers.

Descriptive-analytical research was conducted on 60 reproductive-age women who participated in an intervention study before COVID-19 (2017). The Persian self-awareness and sexual satisfaction tools of the first study were provided online to the participants. Data analysis was done through Spss-16 and Shapiro-Wilk, Machelli, repeated analysis of variance, Bonferroni, and Tukey with a confidence factor of 0.95.

The results indicated, except for general self-awareness, in other variables; sexual satisfaction (P=0.007), private self-awareness (P=0.001), and social anxiety (P=0.02), the interaction effect of time and intervention is significant. Therefore, the changes in behavior in the two groups were not the same over time, so the assessed variables examined in the control group did not have changes significantly at any time. In the intervention group, the average score of sexual satisfaction (101.77±10.59) at times one (before the intervention in the first study), two (After the intervention in the first study) (110.51± 8.37), and times one and three (COVID-19 period) (107.06±9.21), there was a statistically significant change. These changes in other variables were significant only in times one and two, but not in other times. Despite the lack of statistical difference between the two groups during the COVID-19 period, the scores of all variables, even the social anxiety of the intervention group, were higher than the control group.

In the intervention group, despite the increase in the social anxiety score during COVID-19, the sexual satisfaction score is still higher than the control group. Even though there is no statistically significant difference, this difference is clinically valuable and can be taken into consideration for future interventions.