Treatment – Seeking Behavior

In a study using questionnaires sent to 108 patients, 100 (93%) responded. Researchers looked at hospital records and data from the survey. Only 32% continued self-injection treatment, about half of those (56%) discontinued within the first year, and patients who stopped therapy were significantly older and had poor initial impressions of therapy. Similarly to other studies, the authors concluded that dropout had little to do with side effects or etiology.

In a study of 195 men comparing treatment compliance and treat-ment choice with marital satisfaction using the Maudsley Marital Questionnaire, no dif-ferences were found between the four groups tested: patients on intracavernosal injection treatment, patients who dropped out during the trial-dose phase, patients on other treat-ment, and patients who renounced treatment after first counseling. However, in the patients treated with intracavernosal injections, efficacy was increased by offering infor-mation and enabling couple communication (64). Finally, a survey of depressive symp-toms in patients presenting with ED suggested that patients suffering from ED who had high depressive scores were more likely to discontinue treatments for ED.