A comparative study of stigma and mental health status between patients with erectile dysfunction and patients with erectile dysfunction and diabetes

Abstract

Recently, although stigma and mental health among patients with diabetes have garnered significant research attention, there are still limited investigations into the stigma and mental health of patients with erectile dysfunction (ED) and diabetes. In this study, we aimed to examine the stigma and mental health of patients with ED and diabetes to provide insights for improving the treatment and nursing of patients with ED and diabetes. We selected 82 patients with ED and diabetes and 82 patients with ED. Patients were evaluated using the Basic Information Scale, Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) and Social Impact Scale (SIS). Patients with ED and diabetes had higher scores than the national norm in all dimensions of shame (p < 0.05), while patients with ED scored higher than the national norm in the dimensions of social exclusion, economic discrimination and internal shame (p < 0.05). Further, patients with ED and diabetes had higher scores of disease shame regarding social exclusion, internal shame and social isolation dimensions than patients with ED (p < 0.05). The score of interpersonal relationship factors of patients with ED was lower than that of the national norm (p < 0.05), while for patients with ED, the score of interpersonal relationship factors in patients’ SCL-90 was lower (p < 0.05) and the score of psychotic factors was higher than that of the national norm (p < 0.05). A positive correlation was observed between the paranoid factor score in the SCL-90 of patients with ED and diabetes, the social exclusion dimension score, and the total score in the sense of shame (p < 0.05). Both patients with ED and diabetes and patients with ED exhibited abnormally higher rates of SCL-90 scores, indicating the presence of psychological distress and urging the need to strengthen psychological care.