Tedavi arayışı içindeki erektil disfonksiyonlu hastaların davranışsal özellikleri: Doktora başvuru süresi ve etkileyen faktörler
Özet
Goals: We studied the relationships between the time elapsed till patients witherectile dysfunction seek medical advice and those patient?s age, mariatal status,duration of marriage, time elapsed from last satisfactory sexual intercourse,complaint duration, presence of premature ejaculation, and lastly, patient?sInternational Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) score.Patients and Methods: In this study, we included 191 men complaining of erectilefunction attended our out-patient clinic between September 2004 and February 2008.The assessment of those patients included cheif complaint, history of present illnesss,detailed sexual hisory (mariatal status, marriage duration, complaint duration, timefrom last satisfactory sexual intercourse, complaint-treatment seeking interval time,presence of premature ejaculation) and thorough physical examination (bloodpressure measurement, systematic and genital examination and waist circumference).Fasting blood sugar and serum lipid profile were measured in all study group. AnIIEF form was given to each to be filled by themselves.Results: Study group mean-age was measured as 50.1 year (20-80). From 191 men,92.6% (177) were married. The rest 7.4% (14) were single. A duration of 25 years (8months-51 years) was the mean marriage duration of married group. Mean symptomsduration calculated as 36.6 months (1-360) and the mean time elapsed from lastsatisfactory sexual intercourse found to be 10.5 months (1-180). A mean intervalbetween patient?s symptoms start and treatment seeking was measured as 24.5months (1-360). According to resulting data, no significant relationship foundbetween time to patient?s treatment seeking; and their age and marriage duration (p=0.014 and p= 0.053 respectively). Assuming an age of 40 years to be a cut-off for asubstantial increase in erectile dysfunction, a comparsion between treatment seekinginterval in men below and or above 40 year of age was found to be statisticallyinsignificant (p= 0.305).However, a statistically significant relationship appeared between treatmentseeking interval, complaint duration and time from last satisfactory sexualintercourse (r = 0.68 and r = 0.23; p < 0.001 respectively).A comparsion between treatment seeking interval and complaint severityrevealed no significant relation between them (p=0.186). Lastly, study mencomplaining of severe and moderate erectile dysfunction, were found to have a meantreatment seeking interval of 12 months. On the other hand, a treatment seekinginterval of 6 months was found in study men with mild ED complaint.Discussion: To sum up, ED is an important entity that, once appeared, disrupt thequality of life. In addition, with the advance in medicine, the increase in people lifeexpectancy, has lead to an observable rise in ED prevalence. One of the importantproblems regarding patients with ED is their delay in consulting doctors seekinghelp. Fort this reason, wide public education regarding ED as a disease is an essentialinitial step in its management