Prevalence of Sexual Disorders in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis and Associated Factors

Introduction: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic and progressive pathology, present in between 0.5% and 1% of adults. Sexual disorders (SDs) occur in between 31% and 70% of all patients with RA. Aim: To establish the associated risk factors and the prevalence of SDs in a group of patients with RA. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was performed, evaluated with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V tool. The related factors and the activity of the disease were explored. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted. Main Outcome Measure: The prevalence of SDs was 29.6%. There was an association between the presence of SDs and gender (women; odds ratio [OR]: 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4-0.8), age (OR: 1.4, 95% CI: 1.1-1.8), psy-chological alterations (OR: 12.1, 95% CI: 5.9-27.2), and Disease Activity Score 28 (OR: 1.6, 95% CI: 1.2-2). Results: A total of 1,436 patients, with a median age of 56 years, were analyzed. Conclusion: SDs are present in a third of patients with RA. Among the factors associated with SDs were the activity of the disease, presence of mood disorders, psychiatric disorders, alcoholism, and concomitant auto -immune pathologies. These findings suggest the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach to properly manage RA, as well as an enhancement in communication channels between the health professional team and the patient. Santos-Moreno P, Castro CA, Villarreal L, et al. Prevalence of Sexual Disorders in Patients With Rheu-matoid Arthritis and Associated Factors. Sex Med 2020;8:510-516. Copyright (c) 2020, The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of the International Society for Sexual Medicine. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).