The Relationship between Serum Oxytocin Levels and Sexual Function and Depression: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Inconsistent results were found regarding the relationship between human blood oxytocin (OXT) levels and psychiatric and sexual dysfunction (SD) in several studies. Objective: The present study aimed to determine the relationship between OXT levels and sexual function and depression. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study involving 84 non-pregnant healthy married women at childbearing age. Beck Depression Inventory and Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) were used to collect the data, and human oxytocin ELISA kit was used to determine serum OXT level. The independent t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to determine the relationship between variables. Results: Average age of the participants was 36.1 (6.91) in this study and the range of their age was 19-49. The mean serum OXT level was 192.70 (139.71)pg/ml. The mean total score of FSFI and depression were 21.54 (5.18) and 12.42 (11.20) from the attainable score of 2-36 and 0-63, respectively. The associations between serum OXT level and FSFI overall score (r=0.066, P=0.548) and depression score (r=0.137, P=0.215) were not found to be significant. No statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of women with and without SD (P=0.155) and women with and without depression (P=0.110) in terms of serum OXT levels. Conclusion: The results of this study did not indicate a significant relationship between serum OXT levels and depression and sexual function. As there was no significant relationship between the oxytocin concentrations and measured outcomes, conducting further studies with a better study design and a larger sample size is recommended.