Are aspects of study design associated with the reported prevalence of female sexual difficulties?
OBJECTIVE: To investigate associations between the prevalence of sexual difficulties reported in published studies and design features of those studies to determine if differences in design contribute to variation in prevalence estimates. DESIGN: Systematic review, multivariate analysis. SETTING: Studies published internationally in English. PATIENT(S): Not applicable. INTERVENTION(S): None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Prevalence estimates of difficulty with desire, arousal, orgasm, and sexual pain reported in published studies. RESULT(S): Our systematic literature search identified 1,380 publications. Fifty-five studies met our inclusion criteria (reporting prevalence, sample size and response rate, sample size greater than 100, not clinic based). Reported prevalence of sexual difficulty varied across studies (up to tenfold). Eleven aspects of research conduct in these studies were included in our multivariate analysis as explanatory variables. Five aspects of study design and conduct (d
