Frequency of Marital Intercourse Among Patients with Psychiatric and Psychosomatic Disorders in Japan

This study investigated the frequency of marital intercourse in 951 patients with psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders and compared it to that in a normative sample. Only fourteen percent of the patient group had sexual intercourse more than once per week; thirty-nine percent were sexually inactive. The groups of patients with eating disorders, mood disorders, or any mental or behavioral disorders complicated by organic diseases such as cancer, ischemic heart disease, and other physical disorders had fewer mean coital frequencies than the controls, whereas the coital frequency of patients with anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, sleep disorders, or psychosomatic disorders did not differ significantly from that of controls.