The Effectiveness of Sexual Enrichment Counseling on Sexual Assertiveness in Married Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Sexual assertiveness is one of the criteria for examining sexual relationships, responding to sexual needs, and expressing sexual preferences.
The present study aimed at determining the effect of sexual enrichment counseling on sexual assertiveness in married women.
In this randomized controlled trial, 60 married women aged 18 to 45 years, who referred to one of the health centers in Karaj, were recruited purposefully. Then, they were randomly allocated into 2 groups of intervention and control. Hulbert’s Sexual Assertiveness Index was used for data collection.
The intervention group received six 90- minute group counseling sessions and the control group received 1 educational session after the study. Data were collected 1 week and 1 month after the intervention. Analyses were performed using mean and standard deviation, inferential statics of Pearson correlation coefficient, paired t test, and ANOVA with repeated measure.
The mean score of sexual assertiveness before the study was 45.51±8.85 in the intervention group and 46.21 ± 10.43 in the control group (P = 0.55). One week after the intervention, the mean score of sexual assertiveness was 68.44 ± 6.12 in the intervention group and 46.42 ± 10.07 in the control group (P Considering the current findings, it seems that the desired educational counseling courses on sexual issues and the way of its expressiveness based on Iranian culture could be effective in increasing sexual assertiveness ability in married women. Conducting similar quantitative and qualitative studies with larger sample sizes and in similar populations are highly recommended for designing gender and cultural based sexual education.