Secondary Dyspareunia After Childbirth: A Pilot Study for Comparison Between Group of Women With Episiotomy and Women Without Perineal Trauma

PROBLEM

Dyspareunia research following childbirth usually includes women who received an episiotomy during childbirth. Few studies have examined dyspareunia after childbirth in women who had no episiotomy or perineal trauma.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to compare the incidence of dyspareunia in women with perineal trauma related to childbirth to women without perineal trauma related to childbirth. The second aim was to assess risk factors for dyspareunia after childbirth.

METHODS

A quantitative cross-sectional study was designed and data were collected from a questionnaire that were sent via the internet (online). The study was performed in Slovenia. The study design included purposive and snowball sampling. Participants were assured anonymity.

Analysis of data was conducted using SPSS 20.0. Factor analysis determined the validity and Cronbach's coefficient alpha determined the reliability of the questionnaire. The adequacy of a correlation matrix for factorization was assessed with the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test and the Bartlett's test. To determine statistically significant differences, the chi-square (χ²) test was used. Kullback–Leibler divergence was used to measure how one probability distribution was different from the other probability distribution when the χ² test was not satisfactory.

FINDINGS

There were 387 respondents to the online questionnaire and 22% of the women who received an episiotomy prior to childbirth reported dyspareunia after childbirth; 13.69% reporteddyspareunia when they had no perineal trauma associated with childbirth. Dyspareunia persisted up to 18 months in 11% of participants who had an episiotomy and in 8% of women who experienced no perineal trauma.

DISCUSSION

After an atraumatic childbirth, women can also experience dyspareunia. Pregnant women may benefit when their provider knows the risk factors for dyspareunia and limits episiotomy to those situations when there is a clear indication. Additional research may elucidate risk factors for dyspareunia following an atraumatic delivery.