A new review of existing research suggests that group therapy can help men with erectile dysfunction even if they are already using popular drugs like Viagra. Group therapy could even be a feasible alternative to some treatments for impotence.
While the number of men studied overall was small, the reviewers found that group therapy appeared to be about as successful as suction devices and injections in terms of promoting erections. One analysis showed therapy worked for nearly two-thirds of participants.
The findings spotlight the importance of "integrating sex therapy and other psychological techniques into office practice" to help impotent patients, said lead author Tamara Melnik, professor of psychiatry at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
Before the days of Viagra and its sibling drugs, many considered erectile dysfunction to be a difficult-to-treat psychological disorder. Now, drugs allow millions of men to achieve normal erections by allowing blood to flow more freely to the penis; the more serious side effects are rare.
However, drugs are not always an automatic cure for men with erectile dysfunction, especially those whose impotence relates to psychological factors.
A 2001 study of 115 impotent men found that psychological factors were responsible for the problems in 43 percent of the men and physical factors were responsible for problems in another 43 percent. In the rest of the men, researchers blamed impotence on a combination of mental and physical factors.
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