Statistical analysis
The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, Inc., Chicago IL), version 22, software for Windows. Whether the variables were normally distributed was determined by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk normality tests. Student t test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for comparison of continuous variables between groups, and Chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical variables. Pearson correlation test was used to evaluate the relationships between parameters. Wilcoxon test was used to compare FSFI and SF-36 questionnaire scores before and after smoking cessation. The results were presented as median (min-max), mean ±standard deviation (sd), percentage (%) and number (n). P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results :
A total of 556 premenopausal female patients (395 smoking and 191 control) were included in this study. The mean age of the patients was 33.6±8.5 years. The comparison of the groups according to the demographics and the clinical characteristics was given in Table 1. The total FSFI score was significantly lower in the smoking group [21.5 (min:14.4-max:28.69) and 28.9 (min:17.7-max:32.8); p<0.001 respectively]. The rate of FSD was significantly higher in the smoking group when compared with control group (86.0% vs 32.5%; p<0,001). Also all of the sub-domain scores of the FSFI questionnaire and the SF-36 questionnaires were found to be statistically lower in the smoking group (Table 1). A significant negative correlation between the duration of smoking and FSFI total scores was found in smoking group (r=-0.633, p<0.001). A statistically significant strong negative correlation was found between the duration of smoking and sexual satisfaction (r=-0.640, p<0.001). However, there was a statistically significant but weak correlation between other FSFI sub-domain scores and duration of smoking (Table 2). Also a week correlation was detected between the duration of smoking and the SF-36 sub-domain scores; and between the FSFI total score and SF-36 sub-domain scores (Table 2).
The rate of FSD was significantly decreased after nine months smoking cessation (86% to 35.1%; p<0.001). There were statistically significant improvements after cessation smoking in total FSFI score and FSFI sub-domain scores including desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, sexual satisfaction and pain (Table 3). Smoking cessation also caused statistically significant improvements in SF-36 sub-domain scores, especially in physical role and emotional role sub-domains (Table 3).