Sexual health during menopause – counselling with an approach to emotional regulation on sexual satisfaction

Background and objectives
One of the concerns of menopause is the decrease of sexual desire or satisfaction. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of group counselling with an approach to emotional regulation on sexual satisfaction of postmenopausal women.

Material and methods
The present research was a randomised educational trial study and was conducted in 2017 in Khomein in the Markazi province Iran on postmenopausal women visiting a health centre specialising in physical health assessment for elderly women. The 200 participants who chose to participate, after obtaining written consent, completed questionnaires. Finally, 40 eligible participants were included in the study based on lower score 75 in sexual satisfaction questionnaire and lower score 270 in emotional quotient questionnaire. 20 individuals were allocated to the intervention group (emotional regulation), and 20 individuals in control group by by two arms block. The intervention group attended 8 emotional regulation counselling sessions, and the control group received the routine care.. The sexual satisfaction of postmenopausal women was measured before and one month after the intervention using the Larson sexual satisfaction questionnaire and Bar-On’s emotional quotient questionnaire, respectively. The data was analysed through SPSS software version 23, as well as the Mann–Whitney U test, t-test, Wilcoxon Sign test and chi-square test.

Results
The mean sexual satisfaction score (78.3 ± 14.8) increased after the intervention of emotional regulation in counselling group compared to the control group (p > 0.05), but this wasn’t significant.

Conclusions
Although emotional regulation can be considered as an appropriate method to improve sexual satisfaction in these women, more study should be done in the future.