Associated factors of depressive symptoms in patients with erectile dysfunction

Abstract

The presence of depression in patients with erectile dysfunction not only worsened the condition but also makes its management more complicated. We conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate several factors associated with depression of 131 patients with erectile dysfunction at Hanoi Medical University Hospital. The depression rate of the subjects was 45.8%. Compared with the non-depressive group, the patients with depression had a lower mean age (39 ± 13.3 and 50 ± 14.1 years old, p < 0.001) and a greater frequency of masturbation (0.6 ± 1 and 0.1 ± 0.5 times/week, p = 0.001). The factors that correlate with the severity of depression on the PHQ-9 scale were age and masturbation frequency (r = -0.352 and 0.346, p < 0.001). The factors associated with depression include age under 40 (OR = 5.15, p < 0.001), single (OR = 6.53, p < 0.001), masturbation (OR = 5.02, p = 0.001) and the sudden onset of erectile dysfunction (OR = 2.36, p = 0.03). The results show that depression occurs in patients with erectile dysfunction at a relatively high rate, therefore, depression needs to be screened for this group of patients, especially those with risk factors.