Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Sexual difficulties significantly impact quality of life, mood, and relationship stability, and are usually unaddressed in the clinical setting. Among the various types of sexual difficulties, sexual desire discrepancy (SDD) is the most common reason for couples to seek therapy and occurs when two partners desire different levels or different frequencies of sexual activity leading to significant distress and conflict. At present, no evidence-based treatment for couples' SDD exists and there are no Canadian guidelines for its management. According to the European Society for Sexual Medicine (ESSM), treatment for SDD should combine psychoeducation with sex therapy directed to the couple, rather than to an individual. Moreover, online treatments are becoming more common because they are more cost-effective, and easier to access for people with sexual difficulties, in addition to being effective. In the field of sex therapy, there is interest in examining how well online educational therapies work when paired with (or without) different levels of support. This comes from the belief that treatments that have no or minimal guidance would be significantly less expensive and easier to deliver. Supportive Sex Education is an effective treatment for low desire in women, and in this project, we will adapt this effective treatment online to couples with SDD. In one condition, couples will also meet with a therapist online for additional guidance, and in the other condition, couples will not receive any additional guidance. To the best of our knowledge, this would be the first study to test the feasibility, usability, and effectiveness of a treatment for SDD on both members of a couple. In the long-term, we plan to disseminate the findings of this work in order to enhance quality of life and sexual satisfaction among a much larger population of couples who struggle with SDD in silence.