COVID-19 Confinement and Sexual Activity in Spain: A Cross-Sectional Study

Rubén López-Bueno, Guillermo F. López-Sánchez, Alejandro Gil-Salmerón, Igor Grabovac, Mark A. Tully, José Casaña and Lee Smith
Additional contact information
Rubén López-Bueno: Department of Physical Medicine and Nursing, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Guillermo F. López-Sánchez: Vision and Eye Research Institute, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health, Education, Medicine and Social Care, Anglia Ruskin University-Cambridge Campus, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK
Alejandro Gil-Salmerón: Polibienestar Research Institute, University of Valencia, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Igor Grabovac: Centre for Public Health, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Mark A. Tully: Institute of Mental Health Sciences, School of Health Sciences, Ulster University, Newtownabbey BT37 0QB, UK
José Casaña: Exercise Intervention for Health Research Group (EXINH-RG), Department of Physiotherapy, University of Valencia, 46022 Valencia, Spain
Lee Smith: The Cambridge Centre for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 5, 1-9

Abstract: Restrictions of free movement have been proven effective in tackling the spread of COVID-19 disease. However, sensitive populations submitted to longer periods of restrictions may experience detrimental effects in significant areas of their lifestyle, such as sexual activity. This study examines sexual activity during the COVID-19 confinement in Spain. A survey distributed through an institutional social media profile served to collect data, whereas chi-squared tests, t -tests, analyses of variance, and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to assess differences among sample subgroups. A total of 71.3% adults (N = 536) (72.8% female) reported engaging in sexual activity with a weekly average of 2.39 times (SD = 1.80), with significant differences favoring males, middle age, married/in a domestic relationship ( p < 0.001), employed ( p < 0.005), medium–high annual household income, living outside the Iberian Peninsula, and smoking and alcohol consumption. Analyses adjusted for the complete set of control variables showed significant odds for a lower prevalence of weekly sexual activity in women (OR = 0.44, 95% CI 0.27–0.72). Interventions to promote sexual activity in confined Spanish adults may focus on groups with lower sexual activity.

Keywords: sexual intercourse; social isolation; COVID-19; health habits; lifestyle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2559/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/5/2559/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:5:p:2559-:d:510467

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().