ArticleArchives of sexual behavior2022
Sexual Desire in the Time of COVID-19: How COVID-Related Stressors Are Associated with Sexual Desire in Romantic Relationships.
Article in Archives of sexual behavior, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Decreased sexual desire and distress symptoms: an analysis among urban Chinese women.Sexual medicine · 2026Article
- Search traffic for inflatable penile prosthesis increased following the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: a Google Trends analysis.International journal of impotence research · 2025Article
- The Multifaceted Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on Sexual Health, Function, and Behaviors: Implications for Public Health: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Sexual Activity and Mental Health in Higher Education Students in Antwerp, Belgium During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Extradyadic stress as a barrier to sexual activity in couples? A dyadic response surface analysis.Journal of social and personal relationships · 2024Article
- Sin in the Digital Flesh? Religiosity and the Sexting Behavior of Women and Men in the United States.Journal of religion and health · 2024Article
- A Prospective, Longitudinal Comparison of Sexual Distress Across Relationship Status During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Archives of sexual behavior · 2024Article
- (Un)forgotten Sex Lives During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Coping Strategies That Work and the Role of Experience.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- American Singles' Attitudes Toward Future Romantic/Sexual Partners' COVID-19 Vaccination Status: Evidence for both Vigilance and Indifference in a National Sample.Sexuality & culture · 2023Article
- Balancing risk, intimacy and (non)compliance: a qualitative study of sex across household during COVID-19 social restrictions.Culture, health & sexuality · 2023Article
- Relationship and Sexual Quality in the Wake of COVID-19: Effects of Individual Regulatory Focus and Shared Concerns over the Pandemic.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2023Article
- A descriptive literature review of early research on COVID-19 and close relationships.Journal of social and personal relationships · 2023Review
- Changes in Solo and Partnered Sexual Behaviors following the First COVID-19 Wave: Data from an International Study of 26 Countries.International journal of sexual health : official journal of the World Association for Sexual Health · 2023Article
- From economic difficulties to psychological maladjustment in Italian women during the Covid-19 pandemic: does marital dissatisfaction moderate or mediate this association?Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- U.S. College Students' Sexual Risk Behaviors Before and During the Early COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of sex researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting social distancing measures have caused widespread social and economic disruptions, resulting in spikes in unemployment and financial instability, along with drastic changes to people's ability to feel socially connected. Many of the changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic are risk factors for depressive symptoms, which are associated with lower levels of sexual desire. The current research (N = 4,993) examined whether responses to external stressors brought on by COVID-19 (i.e., financial concern, worry, loneliness, stress) were associated with sexual desire among a multi-national sample of people in relationships (Studies 1-2), and whether this association was, in part, due to reports of depressive symptoms (Study 2). In the period immediately following the onset of the pandemic, more financial concern (Study 1) and worry (Study 2) were associated with higher sexual desire, while other factors, like stress (Studies 1-2), were associated with lower desire. We also followed a subset of participants every two weeks during the initial stages of the pandemic and at times when people reported greater stress, loneliness, financial strain, or worry than their average, they reported greater depressive symptoms, which was, in turn, associated with lower sexual desire. Results suggest that the social isolation and stress resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have mixed associations with sexual desire at the onset of the pandemic. But over time, when people report heightened COVID-related stressors, they tend to report lower sexual desire for their partner, in part because these stressors are associated with more depressive symptoms.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.