Stephanie M Woolridge, Isabelle Hau, Emma Wilkinson, Chloe A Stewart, Savie Edirisinghe, Robert Aidelbaum, Michael W Best, Christopher R Bowie
{"title":"Experiences relating to intimacy, romance, and sexuality in early psychosis.","authors":"Stephanie M Woolridge, Isabelle Hau, Emma Wilkinson, Chloe A Stewart, Savie Edirisinghe, Robert Aidelbaum, Michael W Best, Christopher R Bowie","doi":"10.1007/s00127-025-03002-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>Many individuals experiencing early psychosis identify intimacy, romance, and sexuality as components of their subjective recovery, yet can face illness-related barriers in forming and maintaining close relationships. As limited research has examined these barriers in depth, the present study explored specific differences across aspects of intimacy, romance, and sexuality between individuals with and without psychotic disorders.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Participants with early psychosis (N = 35) and community controls (N = 38) completed questionnaires relating to clinical symptoms, social integration (e.g., loneliness, belongingness), and sexual and romantic functioning, dissatisfaction, and related difficulties.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Individuals with early psychosis reported significantly more loneliness, attachment anxiety and avoidance, sexual dissatisfaction, sexual anxiety, and hypersexuality than control participants, as well as significantly lower belongingness, romantic relationship functioning, sexual self-esteem, and sexual optimism. Among individuals currently in a romantic relationship, groups did not differ in relationship satisfaction or investment. Groups also did not differ in sexual distress among individuals who had had sex within the past month. Finally, there were no group differences in sexual self-efficacy, preoccupation, self-blame, motivation, or self-schemata.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>These findings contribute to a sparse literature base regarding intimate, romantic, and sexual aspects of social functioning in psychosis. Future research should continue to explore the relationships between aspects of intimate, romantic, and sexual functioning and other facets of illness and recovery in early psychosis.</p>","PeriodicalId":49510,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-025-03002-2","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHIATRY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Purpose: Many individuals experiencing early psychosis identify intimacy, romance, and sexuality as components of their subjective recovery, yet can face illness-related barriers in forming and maintaining close relationships. As limited research has examined these barriers in depth, the present study explored specific differences across aspects of intimacy, romance, and sexuality between individuals with and without psychotic disorders.
Methods: Participants with early psychosis (N = 35) and community controls (N = 38) completed questionnaires relating to clinical symptoms, social integration (e.g., loneliness, belongingness), and sexual and romantic functioning, dissatisfaction, and related difficulties.
Results: Individuals with early psychosis reported significantly more loneliness, attachment anxiety and avoidance, sexual dissatisfaction, sexual anxiety, and hypersexuality than control participants, as well as significantly lower belongingness, romantic relationship functioning, sexual self-esteem, and sexual optimism. Among individuals currently in a romantic relationship, groups did not differ in relationship satisfaction or investment. Groups also did not differ in sexual distress among individuals who had had sex within the past month. Finally, there were no group differences in sexual self-efficacy, preoccupation, self-blame, motivation, or self-schemata.
Conclusion: These findings contribute to a sparse literature base regarding intimate, romantic, and sexual aspects of social functioning in psychosis. Future research should continue to explore the relationships between aspects of intimate, romantic, and sexual functioning and other facets of illness and recovery in early psychosis.
期刊介绍：
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology is intended to provide a medium for the prompt publication of scientific contributions concerned with all aspects of the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders - social, biological and genetic.
In addition, the journal has a particular focus on the effects of social conditions upon behaviour and the relationship between psychiatric disorders and the social environment. Contributions may be of a clinical nature provided they relate to social issues, or they may deal with specialised investigations in the fields of social psychology, sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, health service research, health economies or public mental health. We will publish papers on cross-cultural and trans-cultural themes. We do not publish case studies or small case series. While we will publish studies of reliability and validity of new instruments of interest to our readership, we will not publish articles reporting on the performance of established instruments in translation.
Both original work and review articles may be submitted.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
