The Usability of Complementary Medicine in Sexual Performance of Postmenopausal Women: A Systematic Review

Sexual performance is among the most important aspects of postmenopausal women's life. The long-term side effects of hormone replacement therapy during menopause have led women towards the use of complementary therapies to improve sexual performance. This systematic review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of complementary therapies in improving the sexual performance of postmenopausal women.

In this systematic review, studies in English and Persian languages were searched in national (SID, Magiran, and IranMedex) and international databases (PubMed, Science Direct, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar) until 2023. The search keywords were selected based on the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) and included "Sexual Dysfunctions", "Menopause", "Complementary medicine", "Alternative medicine" combined with Boolean operators (OR and AND). Finally, quality assessment and data extraction were performed independently by two researchers using Cochran's standard tool.

Finally, 22 articles with a total sample size of 1617 participants were selected. The types of the articles were randomized and non-randomized clinical trials. Studies showed that aroma therapy, combined inhalation aromatherapy, and herbal compounds, including combined herbal capsules containing red ginseng extract, saffron, red clover and black cohosh, date palm pollen and Althaea officinalis improved sexual performance in menopausal women. Furthermore, performing activities, including yoga, Benson relaxation and CBT had the greatest effect on sexual performance.

Based on the results of the present study, most complementary medicine treatments were effective in improving the sexual performance of postmenopausal women.