Prevalence and forms of sexual dysfunctions in Egyptian men with epilepsy in Helwan

Abstract

Background Although there is a striking impact of epilepsy on sexual functions, this issue is avoided by the patients, because they consider it as a taboo that brings much shame to the complainer and also largely ignored by physicians and neurologists who involved in epileptic patient management. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and forms of sexual dysfunction (SD) in Egyptian men with epilepsy and relating this dysfunction to the type of epilepsy and the existing sex hormone disturbance. Methods We recruited seventy male epileptic patients on anti-seizure medications and seventy healthy males aged-matched control subjects. We assessed their sexual functions using IIEF-15. Results The prevalence of SD in epileptic patients in our study was as follows: erectile function (64.3%), sexual desire (45.7%), intercourse satisfaction (37.2%) and orgasmic function (15.7%). We found statistically significant lower IIEF scores in uncontrolled versus controlled epileptic patients, in spite that total and free testosterone were not statistically significantly different between the two groups. Although a lower IIEF score in focal versus generalized epilepsy was noticed, but only orgasmic function achieved statistical significance (P = 0.049). Our results exhibited no statistically significant difference as regard treatment therapy in relation to sexual function and hormonal plasma level. Conclusions A higher prevalence of sexual dysfunction was observed in the epileptic patients especially in those with uncontrolled seizures. For that reason, the issues related to sexual activity should be clarified by physicians how are involved in managing the patients suffering from epilepsy.