CHICAGO, May 26 (UPI) -- Sexual activity declines in patients who don't discuss with their doctors when it's safe to resume sex after a heart attack, U.S. researchers said.
Lead author Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau, associate professor of obstetrics/gynecology and medicine-geriatrics at the University of Chicago, said the study involved 1,184 male and 576 female acute heart attack patients.
Nearly one-half of the men and about one-third of the women said they received discharge instructions on when to resume sexual activity.
However, fewer than 40 percent of men and fewer than 20 percent of women said they talked about sex with their physicians in the year following their heart attack.
One year after the heart attack, more than two-thirds of the men reported some sexual activity and about 40 percent of the women reported sexual activity -- but men were 1.3 times more likely, and women 1.4 times more likely, to report a loss of sexual activity after one year if they weren't told when they could resume sexual activity.
"For the most part, physicians just aren't discussing this topic with their patients after a heart attack," Lindau said in a statement.
The findings were reported at the American Heart Association's 11th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke.
