Breathlessness is affecting sex - but no one’s talking about it

Being constantly short of breath doesn’t just limit how far you can walk - it can reshape your entire life with people experiencing chronic breathlessness far more likely to report poor quality of life and relationship struggles. Experts say timely interventions can help with this often overlooked condition.

Chronic breathlessness affects every part of a person’s life – including their sex life, with people experiencing  breathlessness saying they have greatly reduced satisfaction with their overall sexual life.

Flinders University researchers have found from a national survey that the often-underplayed condition of chronic breathlessness can not only affect people’s physical condition but also limit their enjoyment of such intimacies as sex.

Lead author, Professor David Currow, Strategic Professor at the Flinders Ageing Alliance, says up to one in 100 Australians is housebound or struggles with tasks such as dressing or undressing because of chronic breathlessness.

This chronic symptom is experienced by four per cent – 10 per cent of the general population in high-income countries, with higher rates in low-resource countries and 25% of the middle-aged population, and rising proportions in older populations, yet its significance is not widely discussed.

“This is a significant problem because chronic breathlessness is largely invisible, even to close family members,” says Professor Currow.

“People give up doing many everyday things to avoid breathlessness and their worlds shrink.”

The researchers, including international experts in Sweden and the US, and the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, evaluated associations between breathlessness and individuals’ perceived satisfaction with sexual lives and explored mediating factors in this relationship.

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A cross-sectional, online, population-based survey of more than 10,000 Australian adults, of which 52 per cent were women (average age 45), had 42 per cent report they were very dissatisfied with their overall sexual life. Nine percent of all people reported that breathlessness had impacted their overall sexual life.

People with chronic breathlessness were one and one-half times more likely to report that they were not satisfied with their sexual lives – having controlled for age, sex and body mass index.

“Increasing breathlessness severity is associated with the likelihood of a person’s overall sexual life being impacted negatively,” says Professor Currow.

“The high prevalence rates of dissatisfaction with overall sexual life and perceived impacts for people with chronic breathlessness align with high rates of sexual dissatisfaction and impacts on sexual health reported by people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and poorer physical fitness.”

Early identification of sexual health concerns and associated psychological distress can guide timely interventions, including counselling, pulmonary rehabilitation and practical strategies for intimacy.

“The interplay between a person’s perceived satisfaction with their sexual life and a range of social and health factors is complicated,” explains Professor Currow.

“A wide variety of factors may underpin satisfaction with a person’s sexual life – such as hormonal, physical, physiological and psycho-social influences – any of which may be compromised in people with chronic breathlessness.”

The study also indicates an indirect relationship between breathlessness and perceptions related to overall sexual life potentially mediated by emotional functioning, something not found for physical nor social functioning.