The impact of hysterectomy for benign conditions on patients’ life – our experience.

Introduction. Sexual life has a major importance in a woman’s life during premenopause and beyond. Hysterectomy for benign conditions is a frequent surgical intervention in gynecology, indicated for benign reasons. That can cause various issues regarding physical and psychological well-being, both physical and psychological. Materials and method. In our study, we chose 50 patients who had total hysterectomy with bilateral adnexectomy in a period of one year. They were interviewed using a telephone questionnaire, which included questions about the sexual life before and after the operation. Results. The study revealed preoperative symptoms such as metrorrhagia (43%), menorrhagia (39%), pelvic-abdominal pain (24%), secondary anemia (20%) and other related symptoms (2%). After the surgery, the sexual life was affected, and the patients complained about anxiety in 25% of cases, pain during sexual contact (13%), vaginal dryness (6%), bleeding during or after sexual contact (4%) and anorgasmia (2%). However, most of the patients declared that their sex life was not affected after the surgical intervention (62%), while the rest (38%) answered affirmatively. Conclusions. The low quality of sexual life can lead to changes in behavior, in the perception of her own body, to lower self-esteem and subsequently to a lower quality of life, but this is not significantly affected by hysterectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]