Asthma negatively affects the sex lives of two-thirds of patients participating the REACH study (Reducing Emergency Asthma Care in Harlem). Ilan H. Meyer, Ph.D., of the Harlem Lung Center at Columbia University’s Joseph L. Mailman School of Public and Health Harlem Hospital Center in New York City. Dr. Meyer and colleagues surveyed 353 adult residents of Central and West Harlem following their visit to the Harlem Hospital Emergency Department for asthma treatment. When they asked about patients’ sexual functioning during the two weeks prior to interview, the researchers found that 19% did not engage in sex at all, 47% reported little to total limitation in sexual functioning, and only 34% reported no limitations at all in their sexual activity. Greater sexual limitation was related to older age and lower income, but there were no differences between men and women. Psychological characteristics including a higher level of depressive symptoms increased the risk that a patient’s asthma would impact their sex life, as did having more severe disease. Researcher encourage physicians to ask their asthmatic patients about their sexual functioning, as it is a potential indicator of asthma that is not well-controlled.
SOURCE/REFERENCE: 96th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society, May 2000
