Health Psychology Report (Feb 2014)
Sexual activity of pregnant Polish women and the assessment of the marital relation quality
Abstract
Background The aim of the research was to present sexual functioning of pregnant women in terms of their assessment of the sexual life and marital relation. The study included 61 pregnant women (31 with high-risk pregnancy and 30 with a normal course of pregnancy), aged on average 28.5 years and pregnant on average for 27.5 weeks. Participants and procedure The study was based on the sociodemographic questionnaire The Female Sexual Function Questionnaire, SFQ28 (designed by Quirk et al., 2005), the Sexual Quality of Life Questionnaire – Female Version, SQoL-F (designed by Symonds et al., 2005), and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, DAS (designed by Cieślak, 1989). Results The obtained results reveal changes in sexual functioning during pregnancy, mostly in terms of desire and excitement. The groups differed significantly in terms of sexual activity. Women with pathological pregnancy obtained lower results on the scales of desire, arousal, orgasm and satisfaction with sexual relationship. With every subsequent pregnancy week, both groups obtained lower results on the scales of arousal, orgasm and satisfaction with sexual activity. Neither pregnancy nor its length was related to the assessment of satisfaction with marital relation. Conclusions The conducted data analysis indicates that the subjective assessment of sexual life is related to the assessment of marital relation on the scale of emotional expression and relation coherence. No relation of sexual activity and sexual life with the assessment of the quality of marital relation was proved. However, the assessment of sexual life is related significantly to the assessment of the quality of marital relation.
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