Study finds negative mental health impact of Peyronie’s disease

In this video, Olivia Paulsen discusses potential future work and key takeaways from the study, “A Contemporary Glimpse into the Perceptions, Characteristics, and Psychosocial factors of Peyronie's disease Among Men Who Have Sex With Men,” which was presented at the 2024 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Paulsen is a medical student at Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine in Meridian, Idaho.

Video Transcript:

Is there any future work planned based on this study?

Personally, I would like to do another survey that makes those questions a little more granular. One of the questions that I got when I was at AUA was, what is a negative experience with a urologist, which I think is a really good question. We didn't define that. So, it's really hard for a urologist to improve the experience for patients when we're not defining that experience. Only 30% of our respondents were men who have sex with men. So, there was a big discrepancy there. I'd like to get it distributed through institutions perhaps rather than through social media, because you can't control who's responding when you put things on the internet.

What are the overall take-home messages from this study?

From what we can gather from this study, there is no statistically significant difference in the biopsychosocial impact between men who have sex with men and men who do not have sex with men who also have Peyronie's disease. But Peyronie's disease does impact mental health, so I think it's important to consider that when you're evaluating people for Peyronie's. Perhaps it's worth giving them questionnaires like the PHQ-9 or GAD-7 to monitor their mental health status and encourage or ask if they even have support around them. Until we get a better understanding of what a negative experience looks like, I think it's just a good thing to keep in the back of your mind when we're talking to these patients to make sure that they have a better experience.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.