Author Interviews, JAMA, Sexual Health / 11.11.2018
Over 8% of Americans Expressed Distress About Having Difficulty Controlling Their Sexual Urges and Behaviors
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Janna A Dickenson, PhD
Doug Braun-Harvey Postdoctoral Fellow
Program in Human Sexuality
Department of Family Medicine
University of Minnesota Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Researchers and clinicians have contested the term “sex addiction” in favor of alternative definitions and symptom presentations. Recently, the ICD-11 has characterized compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) as a persistent pattern that involves failing to control intense sexual urges or sexual behaviors that results in significant levels of distress and/or impairment in one’s functioning.
Janna A Dickenson, PhD
Doug Braun-Harvey Postdoctoral Fellow
Program in Human Sexuality
Department of Family Medicine
University of Minnesota Medical School
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Researchers and clinicians have contested the term “sex addiction” in favor of alternative definitions and symptom presentations. Recently, the ICD-11 has characterized compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) as a persistent pattern that involves failing to control intense sexual urges or sexual behaviors that results in significant levels of distress and/or impairment in one’s functioning.
Researchers estimate that CSBD affects 2-6% of the population and is much more common among cisgender men than cisgender. Using a randomized national sample, we assessed the prevalence of a key feature of CSBD that researchers and clinicians agree upon: distress and impairment associated with difficulty controlling sexual feelings, urges, and behaviors.
We performed this assessment with a screening tool called the Compulsive Sexual Behavior Inventory (CSBI). Of the 2,325 adults, 8.6 percent overall (10.3 percent of individuals who identified as men and 7 percent of individuals who identified as women) met the clinical threshold of the CSBI; meaning that 8.6% of people expressed difficulty controlling their sexual feelings, urges and behaviors and experienced distress and/or impairment as a result. To be clear, this does not mean the 8.6% of the sample endorsed CSBD, but that 8.6% of our sample exhibited significant distress or impairment related to difficulty controlling one's sexual behaviors.
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