Sexual activity of women and men one year before a first acute myocardial infarction.

A decrease in sexual activity after an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) for both women and men has been reported with one study suggesting that this reduction in sexual activity may precede rather than proceed the AMI. The present study compared the sexual activity of women and men before AMI to the sexual activity of a normative community sample of women and men, to examine whether the above reduction in sexual activity is especially characteristic of women and men who later incur an AMI. This study also investigated the association between selected medical and sociodemographic variables and sexual inactivity of women and men before an AMI. During an interview before discharge,138 women and 760 men who were hospitalized due to a first AMI responded to a question regarding the frequency of their sexual activity 1 year before the AMI. Their sociodemographic and medical background was obtained from the interview and the medical charts. When compared to a normative sample, only women reported significantly less sexual activity during the year before their AMI. These women were also found to be at a disadvantage when compared to men on many of the sociodemographic and medical variables shown to contribute to sexual inactivity for both men and women. However, the higher percent of sexual inactivity for women during the year before AMI may not only be due to women's higher morbidity and lower sociodemographic status. Other variables not included in this study, but associated with gender, could account for this result.