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More Than Half of Patients on LAI Antipsychotics Experience Sexual Dysfunction
In a real-life sample of patients treated with long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics, 62.2% of men and 51.2% of women reported some extent of sexual dysfunction, according to study results published in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing.
“Although some studies have been developed to study sexual dysfunction in people treated with LAI antipsychotics, most of them included participants in monotherapy only, with a precise psychiatric diagnosis, or excluding any somatic disorders that could be related to sexual dysfunction,” researchers wrote. “Therefore, the main objective of the present study was to measure real-life prevalence of sexual dysfunction in a sample of people treated with LAI antipsychotics with a naturalistic approach.”
The study included 90 men and 41 women treated with LAI antipsychotics, with and without other psychotropic medications, at an urban outpatient clinic in Spain. Polypharmacy was present in 52.7% of the study population.
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Overall, 58.8% of patients had sexual dysfunction, which was severe for the majority, researchers reported. The most frequent symptom among all patients combined was loss of libido, which affected 45% of the study sample. By gender, the most prevalent dysfunction in men was loss of libido (40%) and in women was delayed orgasm (39%).
Hyperprolactinemia affected 56% of men and 61% of women, the study found. In men, sexual dysfunction was linked with higher antipsychotic doses, hyperprolactinemia, and smoking. In postmenopausal women, sexual dysfunction was associated with smoking in hyperprolactinemia.
“This study provides real-life evidence of sexual dysfunction and hyperprolactinemia in persons treated with LAI antipsychotics segregated by gender,” researchers wrote. “The high rates of sexual dysfunction and hyperprolactinemia detected corroborate the need to consider these aspects in clinical practice.”
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