Erectile failure among medical clinic patients.

Erectile failure is commonly overlooked by most doctors while conducting clinical interviews. This is probably, in part, explained by the widespread belief within the medical profession that the disorder is mostly psychogenic and probably uncommon in a variety of patient populations. In order to define the frequency and pattern of this disorder in our local clinic population, the present study has determined the incidence of erectile failure in 227 adult male medical out-patients of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu. Seventy-seven (34%) of the patients were impotent and the incidence increased progressively with age. Only 26% of the impotent patients volunteered information on the disorder without specific questioning. Diabetics had a significantly higher incidence of impotence than the non-diabetics (58% vs. 29%; P less than 0.0001). Among the hypertensives, drug therapy increased the frequency from 8 to 61%. These data suggest that impotence is very common among our male medical out-patients, particularly the elderly and middle-aged, the hypertensives on drug therapy and the diabetics. The disorder should be actively sought out since most affected patients do not complain about it.