Combined Oral Contraceptives and Sexual Function in Women—a Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
CONTEXT: There is a lack of knowledge about how oral contraceptives may affect sexual function. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether there is a causal effect of oral contraceptives on sexuality. We hypothesized that a widely used pill impairs sexuality. DESIGN: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Enrollment began in February 2012 and was completed in August 2015. SETTING: Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 340 healthy women, aged 18-35 years, were randomized to treatment, and 332 completed the study. INTERVENTIONS: A combined oral contraceptive (150 μg levonorgestrel and 30 μg ethinylestradiol) or placebo for 3 months of treatment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was the aggregate score on the Profile of Female Sexual Function (PFSF). Secondary outcomes were the seven domains of the PFSF, the Sexual Activity Log, and the Personal Distress Scale. RESULTS: Overall sexual function was similar in women in the oral contraceptive and placebo groups. The PFSF domains desire (-4.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], -8.49 to -0.38; P = .032), arousal (-5.1; 95% CI, -9.63 to -0.48; P = .030), and pleasure (-5.1; 95% CI, -9.97 to -0.32; P = .036) were significantly reduced in comparison to placebo, whereas orgasm, concern, responsiveness, and self-image were similar between groups. The mean frequency of satisfying sexual episodes and personal distress were also similar between groups. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows no negative impact of a levonorgestrel-containing oral contraceptive on overall sexual function, although three of seven sexual function domains were adversely affected.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".