Premature ejaculation patients and their partners: Arriving at a clinical profile for a real optimization of the treatment

The aim of the study is to extrapolate clinical features of Premature Ejaculation (PE) patients and female partners of men affected with PE, in order to get a profile that can be of assistance for physicians within the dynamics of a couple, one of which is a PE patient. An observational, non-interventional, cross-sectional epidemiological study entitled IPER (Italian Premature Ejaculation Research) was conducted and included two different cohorts of subjects that were randomly sampled from a patient dataset of selected General Practitioners: 1. IPER-M sub-cohort (1.104 subjects) was made of male subjects in which they were then distinguished patients with or without PE based on the score of the PEDT questionnaire; IPER-F sub-cohort (1.109 subjects) was made of female subjects from an independent sample of women (therefore not the partners of the IPER-M males) in which they then distinguished those partners of a male subject with PE or not. In addition to an identical general questionnaire to explore demographic aspects and habits, each subcohort was then evaluated using validated questionnaires. No differences were noted between PE+/PE- patients in terms of alcohol consumption, smoking habits, physical activity nor stress condition in everyday life, employment, socio-economic class and marital status. While the prevalence of PE proportionally increased with age, excluding the 50-59 and 70-80 years decades, in the IPER-M group an overall statistically significant difference for the mean age between the PE+ and PE- groups (p = 0.002) was detected, but without reaching any difference amongst the different age classes in the IPER-F group. The PE+ patients reported a significantly lower frequency rate of sexual intercourse, worse QoL (p = 0.006 and p < 0.0001, respectively), and increased anxiety status (p < 0.0001 for both subgroups). This study shows that, rather than talking with a patient affected by PE it would be advisable to introduce the concept of couple counseling with the person patient and his partner, because it is only through classification of both partners as one couple and a full understanding of their mutual sexual experience that PE treatment can be optimized and its results measured accurately.