Women's pain during intercourse : psychological characteristics and clinical implications

The purpose of this study was to identify psychological factors associated with genital pain, as well as moderators of the sexual pain-depression and sexual pain-anxiety links in women. It was hypothesized that genital pain would be a predictor of various psychological variables. Moreover, it was expected that self-esteem, sexual self-efficacy, sexual self-schema, and sexual aversion would moderate the relationship between painful intercourse and depression as well as anxiety. Procedures included recruitment of 252 sexually active undergraduate women, administration of several self-report measures, and conduction of full and hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The sample was primarily non-European-American. Genital pain was a significant predictor of depression, anxiety, sexual anxiety, sexual depression, and sexual aversion. In addition, self-esteem was found to be a significant moderator of the genital pain-depression link. The clinical implications of the present findings are discussed