Attitude of Austrian residents in obstetrics and gynecology towards sexual medicine – a national survey

Introduction: In Austria, about 39% of women suffer from orgasm disorders, 35% report arousal disorders, 22% complain of libido disturbance and 12.8% of women between the ages of 20–39 years suffer from dyspareunia. Despite this high prevalence of female sexual dysfunction, sexual problems are being rarely discussed in gynecological consultation. Methods: Between March and May 2015, an electronic survey was performed on 200 gynecological residents in Austria to evaluate their level of education, interest and attitude in Sexual Medicine (SM). Results With a response rate of 48% a total of 96 responses were received. 69.8% were between 31 and 40 years of age. The majority of respondents were women (91%) and most of them were married or in a relationship (67.7%). 55.2% of the residents were from a district hospital and 22.9% from an academic- or university based residency program. 55.2% were getting an all-round obstetrical and gynecological training. With regards to the training in sexual medicine, 24% replied of having received in depth-training in sexual medicine and only 7.3% having received basic training in sexual medicine. 82.3% of the responding residents considered sexual medicine a topic in obstetrics and gynecology. 58.3% of the responding trainees found training in sexual medicine very important for gynecological practice and 70.8% thought that training should be delivered during residency. 61.5% of the responding residents estimated the percentage of patients, that might have underlying sexual problems, to be between 1 and 20%. The most common sexual problems were considered to be dyspareunia (89.6%), followed by libido problems (63.5%), lubrication disorders (44.8%), orgasm disorders (25%) and arousal disorders (9.4%). Only 2.1% of the survey participants routinely explored sexual issues in more than 80% of their patients and 64.6% would take a sexual history in less than one in five patients. Conclusion Sexual Medicine is considered very important in gynecological practice, but only 7% of residents feel they have received adequate training. A routine sexual history is collected only in about 6% of the consultations.