The Role of Bupropion in the Treatment of Women with Sexual Desire Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Although few clinical trials examined the efficacy of bupropion to treat sexual dysfunction among female patients, a comprehensive and objective synthesis of the best available evidence is still lacking. To date, to the best of our knowledge, there are no published systematic reviews or meta-analyses specifically focusing on the role of bupropion in the treatment of female sexual dysfunction. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of bupropion in the treatment of female sexual dysfunction, and we hypothesized that bupropion is efficient in treating female patients with sexual dysfunction. This review was conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A systematic search for published literature was performed using Ovid, Medline, Scopus, Cochrane Library, Science Direct, and PubMed databases. In our study, we found that bupropion was almost three-fold more favorable in improving problems with sexual desire (pool estimate 2.845, 95% CI: 0.215 to 5.475, I2= 95.6%, p=0.034). A meta-regression was performed to explore heterogeneity and we found that only the dosage of bupropion was statistically significant in explaining the variance, i.e., the lower the dosage (150 mg vs. 300 mg), the better the improvement in the sexual desire of women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). Based on the results of this systematic review and metaanalysis, there is a potential role of bupropion as an effective treatment for women with HSDD.

Keywords: Female sexual dysfunction; HSDD; PRISMA; bupropion; systematic review; treatment.