Pharmacotherapy for sexual dysfunction in women

Abstract

In the setting of multiple studies claiming a high prevalence of sexual problems amongst women, new conceptualisation of the sexual response in women and definitions of sexual dysfunction, which reflect the need for biopsychosocial management, are being developed. The biological underpinnings of the sexual response in women may be influenced by environmental factors, as well as by medications, disease processes and normative changes in endogenous hormones. Psychological factors can alter both the physiological processes and the experience of sexual response. The new models clarify the importance of sexual motivations other than desire, sexual arousability and subtypes of arousal disorder. The role of pharmacotherapy to potentially augment desire, arousability, genital congestion and to lessen the pain of chronic dyspareunia must be envisaged within the holistic biopsychosocial model.