Objective: To investigate the personality and psychological characteristics of premature ejaculation (PE) patients and the correlation between them two.
Methods: Using Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90), we conducted an investigation among 94 PE patients seeking medical advice in Drum Tower Hospital from October 2018 to February 2019.
Results: The neuroticism score of the PE patients on EPQ was significantly higher than the national norm of adult males (t = 12.010, P < 0.01), and so was their introversion-extroversion score (t = 2.557, P < 0.05), while their concealment score was markedly lower (t = －8.736, P < 0.01). The coercion score of the patients on SCL-90 was remarkably higher than the national norm of adult males (t = 2.787, P < 0.01), and so were their psychosis score (t = 3.944, P < 0.01) and anxiety score (t = 2.512, P < 0.05). There was a significant correlation between the EPQ and SCL-90 scores of the patients. Psychoticism was found highly positively correlated with terror (r = 0.455, P < 0.01), interpersonal relationship (r = 0.295, P < 0.01), hostility (r = 0.375, P < 0.01), psychosis (r = 0.363, P < 0.01), compulsion (r = 0.284, P < 0.01), depression (r = 0.294, P < 0.01), paranoia (r = 0.336, P < 0.01), somatization (r = 0.400, P < 0.01) and anxiety (r = 0.358, P < 0.01), and so was neuroticism with terror (r = 0.466, P < 0.01), interpersonal relationship (r = 0.611, P < 0.01), hostility (r = 0.509, P < 0.01), psychosis (r = 0.593, P < 0.01), compulsion (r = 0.573, P < 0.01), depression (r = 0.560, P < 0.01), paranoia (r = 0.550, P < 0.01), somatization (r = 0.465, P < 0.01) and anxiety (r = 0.572, P < 0.01). Introversion-extroversion, however, was highly negatively correlated with interpersonal relationship (r = －0.226, P < 0.05) and depression (r = －0.228, P < 0.05), and so was concealment with terror (r= － 0.351, P < 0.01), interpersonal relationship (r = －0.433, P < 0.01), hostility (r = －0.347, P < 0.01), psychosis (r = －0.427, P < 0.01), compulsion (r = －0.345, P < 0.01), depression (r = －0.379, P < 0.01) , paranoia (r = －0.393, P < 0.01), somatization (r = －0.204, P < 0.05) and anxiety (r =－0.237, P < 0.05).
Conclusions: The personality and psychological status of PE patients are different from those of normal males, and some personality characteristics of the patients are correlated with their psychological status, especially with high neuroticism.
Keywords: Eysenck Personality Questionnaire; Symptom Checklist 90; personality characteristics; premature ejaculation; psychology.