Premature ejaculation among Chinese urban men: prevalence and correlates

Caoyuan Niu; Daniel Ventus; Patrick Jern; Pekka Santtila

doi:10.1093/sexmed/qfac015

Premature ejaculation among Chinese urban men: prevalence and correlates

Sex Med. 2023 Jan 12;11(1):qfac015. doi: 10.1093/sexmed/qfac015. eCollection 2023 Feb.

Authors

Caoyuan Niu^{1

2}, Daniel Ventus³, Patrick Jern⁴, Pekka Santtila^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, People's Republic of China.
² Faculty of Arts and Sciences, NYU Shanghai, Shanghai 200122, People's Republic of China.
³ Experience Lab, Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Turku FI-20500, Finland.
⁴ Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology, Åbo Akademi University, Turku FI-20500, Finland.

Abstract

Background: Premature ejaculation (PE) is a common male sexual dysfunction worldwide. It leads to substantial distress in men and their partners, constitutes a serious threat to the quality and stability of romantic relationships, and results in a decreased quality of life in a large part of the population.

Aim: We investigated the prevalence of PE and correlated factors in an urban sample of Chinese men.

Methods: In total, 1976 Chinese men aged 18 to 50 years responded to an online questionnaire regarding background information, present and previous sexual experience, frequency of different types of sex, as well as erectile and ejaculatory function.

Outcomes: Participants' age, assigned sex at birth, sexual identity, relationship status, present and previous sexual experience, frequency of sexual activities, International Index of Erectile Function-5, and Checklist for Early Ejaculation Symptoms were used in the analyses.

Results: Forty-four (2.3%) participants had scores that were indicative or strongly indicative of PE, which was highly correlated with erectile problems. Men with more sexual experience (ie, more sexual partners and longer duration of being sexually active) had fewer ejaculatory problems. More frequent masturbation was associated with ejaculatory problems when controlling for age and education. More frequent partnered sex (ie, penile-vaginal sex) was associated with fewer ejaculatory problems. Ejaculation latency times for different types of sexual activities were positively correlated.

Clinical translation: The results indicated that ejaculatory problems have complex relationships with sexual experience that clinicians should be aware of.

Strengths and limitations: This study was the first to investigate PE with the Checklist for Early Ejaculation Symptoms as the measurement tool and the associations between PE and sexual experience, frequency of sexual activities, and sexual function in a large Chinese sample. However, self-reported ejaculation latency times may suffer from problems with validity.

Conclusion: Men's sexual experience (ie, more sexual partners and longer duration of being sexually active) has an effect on their sexual function, which in turn affects their sexual activity.

Keywords: erectile function; frequency of sex; premature ejaculation; sexual experience.