Relationship satisfaction moderates the associations between male partner responses and depression in women with vulvodynia: A dyadic daily experience study

Abstract

Summary:Targeting male partner responses and relationship satisfaction may enhance the quality of interventions aimed at reducing depression in women with vulvodynia.

Female Sexual Pain Disorders: a Review of the Literature on Etiology and Treatment

“…In crosssectional and daily diary studies, greater facilitative partner responses were associated with women's lower intercourse pain [67] and better sexual functioning [68], as well as couples' greater relationship and sexual satisfaction [69,67]. Conversely, greater negative and solicitous partner responses are associated with greater pain [26,67,70,71] and more depressive symptoms in women [72], as well as lower sexual functioning [68] and relationship and sexual satisfaction in couples [69]. Whereas facilitative responses may promote couples' use of adaptive coping strategies and shared emotion regulation in the face of pain, solicitous and negative partner responses may reinforce avoidance of pain and sex and disrupt couples' pain-related coping and emotion regulation.…”

Partner Behavioral Responses to Pain Mediate the Relationship Between Partner Pain Cognitions and Pain Outcomes in Women With Provoked Vestibulodynia

“…Partner scales were taken from the original WHYMPI and have previously been adapted and validated to be used in a PVD population 31,33 . Various behaviors are rated on a 6-point Likert scale with higher scores indicating more frequent behaviors.…”

“…Previous findings regarding the effects of catastrophizing on partner behavioral responses have been mixed, and most studies have focused on patient catastrophizing only. In one study, patient catastrophizing predicted negative partner responses, but not solicitous responses 4,31,33 . One influence may be pain duration, as catastrophizing is related to negative responses over longer pain duration, but solicitousness over shorter duration 5,21,31 .…”

“…In the context of PVD, an example of a solicitous response is when a partner suggests that the couple stop engaging in sexual activity; a negative response is when a partner expresses anger or disappointment. Both are associated with worse pain outcomes in cross-sectional and daily diary studies of musculoskeletal pain and PVD 4,5,28,30,32,33,37,39 . Negative partner responding, more so than solicitous responding, has been shown to be related to patient depressive symptoms, which may be due to the perceived supportiveness of solicitous responses 4,30,37 Less is known about why partners respond in specific ways, but based on a cognitive behavioral framework, partner cognition regarding pain may influence their subsequent behavior.…”

Which are the male factors associated with female sexual dysfunction (FSD)?

“…The role of interpersonal factors in determining FSD has been increasingly recognized, even in the context of organic diseases (Miner et al, 2012;Aerts et al, 2014;Rosen et al, 2014). The relational component is not easy to evaluate and quantify, as its relative weight may vary according to age, partnership dynamics such as length and stage of partnership and reproductive status, and it can be significantly influenced by cultural gender schemes.…”