Abstract

Background: Sexual satisfaction is the couple’s satisfaction with their sexual relationship. Anecdotal evidence showed that sexual satisfaction is an important factor in marital satisfaction and sexual dissatisfaction in many cases may aggravate marital disputes. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of consulting with the problem-solving approach on sexual satisfaction of married women. Materials and Methods: During a semi-experimental study and based on an AB-type single case study design with follow-up stage, four married women recruited using purposive sampling through a semi-structured interview. Participants were referred for Iranian women’s health survey or their children's growth monitoring in urban health centers, Shahin Shahr, Iran. Their sexual satisfaction was assessed using Married Women’s Sexual Satisfaction Questionnaireat baseline, from the third to the eight sessions, post completion of intervention, and after four weeks sat follow-up session. The intervention included eight weekly sessions based on a problems-solving approach that assisted by the second author. Data were analyzed using visual analysis. Results: Results of the present study showed that consulting based on problem-solving approach significantly increased the mean score of sexual satisfaction in the participants. Also a repeated measure analysis and Bonferroni post hoc test showed that there was a significant increase between the mean scores for all four subjects who received counseling based on the problem-solving approach in overall sexual satisfaction and its four domains from pre-test to intervention and follow-up stages (p <0/05) That this increase was maintained from intervention to follow-up, and overall, the results indicated that there was an increase in sexual satisfaction. Furthermore, this result was maintained during the follow-up session. Conclusions: Although we had no experimental control group, the consulting approach with single case method demonstrated an appropriate effectiveness in increasing sexual satisfaction of married women. Further studies that include a control group and greater sample size are warranted to evaluate the efficacy of this method for promotion of women's sexual and marital satisfaction.