[Impact of therapeutics on sex. Value of measurements of quality of life]. / Impact des thérapeutiques sur la sphère sexuelle. Intérêt des mesures de la qualité de vie.

ABSTRACT

Quality of Life is a new clinical dimension with the objective of evaluating the impact of a disease or of a treatment on patients well being. Quality of life is a measure of increasing interest. It is a global and cumulative measure, relevant for the evaluation of the therapeutic benefit of a treatment. It can be measured through "specific" or "generic" tools. Very few experimental literature exploring the impact of pathologies over the sexual sphere exists today. Only generic scales have been used, because no specific scale has been developed up to now. The impact of certain pathologies such as depression or diabetes has been documented, but very little objective information exists concerning the sexual repercussion of the chronic use of drugs (anti depressive, anxiolytics). Sexual quality or life as a risk factor for disease development is also dimension that has been explored, but only superficially. In a general way, no evidence exists concerning a reel correlation link between pathologies, treatments and sexual quality of life and this specific dimension of the quality of life still remains to be explored further.