Women's Experiences of Female Sexual Dysfunction As Reported at the Fda's Patient-Focused Meeting

Background and Purpose: In October 2014, the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research organized a “Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) Patient-Focused Drug Development Public Meeting.” The meeting was billed as an opportunity for the FDA, patients, and health professionals to discuss the issues of FSD. Less than one year later to much fanfare and controversy, the first FDA approved drug to treat problems of female sexual desire became available. In the wake of this new drug’s approval and media attention, critical analysis is needed in order to understand the diagnosis of FSD, the social phenomenon of desire for drugs designed to “improve” sexuality, and the role social workers can play.

The purpose of this study was to explore the issues associated with FSD from the perspective of patients and to clarify the definitions, associated causes, and consequences.

Methods:

This qualitative content analysis used the transcript from the FDA meeting to explore issues associated with FSD from the perspective of the 22 women who identified as patients, shared their stories, and answered questions about their experiences. A conventional content analysis was used in order to gain information directly from the patients present at this meeting. For the purposes of analysis triangulation, we separately coded the data and identified emerging patterns. Through inductive coding we separately identified themes and organized excerpts of the transcripts using a combination of in vivo and constructed codes. Together we reviewed, compared, and merged similar codes as appropriate. By returning to the data multiple times both individually and together, we reconsidered and reorganized themes and subthemes and renamed codes to methodically developed a thematic understanding of the patients’ experiences. This process was repeated until we identified four main themes that represented the experiences of FSD reported by the patients.

Findings:

The analysis uncovered a confusion of sexuality-related terms in which dissatisfying sexual experiences were automatically equated with sexual dysfunction and problematized as in need of medical intervention. Additionally, although patients disclosed issues (e.g., personal or partner health, birth of children, loss of job or partner, aging) that could reasonably cause changes or stress in life, the majority of patients did not acknowledge these issues as a potential cause of their sexual dissatisfaction. They expressed an overwhelming desire to control sexual experiences, and they didn’t discuss a desire for sex for pleasure rather than performance.

Conclusion and Implications:

The growth of the pharmaceutical industry in the US may have an impact on unnecessary over-medicalization of female sexuality. Social workers can play a critical role in providing education and awareness for clients to understand the interaction between life context and sexual experiences. Social workers can actively participate in calling for more evidence-based therapeutic interventions and quality research of medical interventions.