Attitudes toward management of decreased sexual desire in premenopausal women: a national survey of nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Recent studies have determined that low sexual desire affects between one quarter to one third of adult premenopausal women, leading to distress. The prevalence of distress from low desire may suggest management gaps in the clinicians managing these patients, as recent studies have shown a reluctance to discuss sexual concerns. A survey based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, a predictive model linking attitudes and behavior, was designed to determine what factors influenced behavioral intent and behavior of nurse practitioners and physician assistants when managing decreased sexual desire and sexual concerns in premenopausal women. A path analysis found that attitudes and subjective norms were associated with behavioral intent in both groups and explained roughly one third of the intent to initiate a discussion about sexual health. In general, nurse practitioners and physician assistants had positive attitudes toward managing sexual concerns in female patients but were still at times reluctant to initiate sexual health discussions. This study shows that increased education is needed on female sexual dysfunction in the allied health professional community, as well as techniques for communicating with patients about their sexual concerns.