Effectiveness of Pelvic Floor Exercises and Sexual Education in Women Over 60
NCT Number: NCT06539897
Status: RECRUITING
Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
Phases: NA
Conditions: Sexual Dysfunction|Menopause|Pelvic Floor Disorders
Interventions: BEHAVIORAL: Sexual education
Sponsor: Akdeniz University
Sex: FEMALE
Age: ADULT, OLDER_ADULT
Enrollment: 70
Study Design: Allocation: RANDOMIZED|Intervention Model: PARALLEL|Masking: NONE|Primary Purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Start Date: 2024-08-02
Completion Date: 2024-09-30
Locations: Alime Buyuk, Antalya, 07070, Turkey

Summary:
Since the mid-19th century, "old age" has been increasingly recognized as a natural life stage, especially as the human lifespan extends. However, aging brings changes that negatively impact women's lives, causing diseases and lowering quality of life. Women now spend about one-third of their lives in old age. With 1.2 billion elderly women expected by 2030 (WHO), addressing aging issues is crucial for improving life quality. As life expectancy for women exceeds 80, advancements in modern and complementary medicine are making old age more bearable. Sexual health, closely tied to general health, should be considered in this context, involving both the woman and her family.

Aging leads to hormonal and muscle changes, causing pelvic floor dysfunctions such as incontinence, prolapse, constipation, and sexual dysfunction (Kikuchi, 2007). Pelvic floor muscles play a key role in sexual function, affecting lubrication, arousal, and orgasm (Berman et al., 2002; DeUgarte et al., 2004; Wright and O'Connor, 2015). Muscle tone imbalances can cause sexual pain disorders or decreased orgasm intensity and urinary incontinence (Berman et al., 2002; Berman, 2005; Mouritsen, 2009). Decreasing hormonal balance with age leads to issues like dyspareunia in women and erectile dysfunction in men (Kelley, 2018). Strategies like behavioral training and exercise can help mitigate age-related pelvic floor problems (Espunã-Pons, 2009).

Primary Outcome Measures: Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire (PFIQ-7), Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire (PFIQ): The questionnaire has 7 questions and each question has 3 separate responses. The response to each item of satisfaction, impact and worry was rated from 3 (quite a bit) to 0 (not at all) for the PFIQ-7. The mean value for all the answered items within the corresponding scale (possible value 0-3) was estimated, then multiplied by (100/3) to obtain the scale score, range 0-100., 1 week|The Sexual Quality of Life-Female (SQOL-F), The Sexual Quality of Life-Female (SQOL-F) questionnaire is a short instrument that specifically assesses the relationship between female sexual dysfunction and quality of life., 1 week|Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory PFDI-20, Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory has a total of 20 questions and 3 scales (Urinary Distress Inventory, Pelvic Organ Prolapse Distress Inventory, and Colorectal-Anal Distress Inventory). Each short-form scale demonstrates significant correlation with their long-form scales, 1 week|Arizona Sexuel Experiences Scale-ASEX, The ASEX scale is designed to measure five specific items identified in a comprehensive literature review as the core elements of sexual function: sexual drive, arousal, penile erection/vaginal lubrication, ability to reach orgasm, and satisfaction from orgasm., 1 week|The Sexual Self-Esteem Inventory for Women (SSEI-W), The Sexual Self-Esteem Inventory for Women (SSEI-W) was developed to assess affective reactions to self-appraisals of sexuality. The 81-item measure contains five subscales, each of which reflects a domain of sexual self-esteem: Skill/Experience, Attractiveness, Control, Moral Judgement, and Adaptiveness. Using a college student sample, reliability analyses indicated that the subscales have high internal consistency. Construct validity was assessed by testing hypotheses regarding the effects of sexual experience, relationship commitment, sex guilt, and global self-esteem on sexual self-esteem. In most cases, as predicted, specific SSEI-W subscales were most strongly associated with specific constellations of predictor variables., 1 week