Hi all,

I've just done the fourth prize draw - so check those emails again! Also, don't forget to add noreply@qemailserver.com to your 'Safe List' to ensure you receive the good news direct to your inbox.  The prize at each time point is a AUD$100 Mastercard Gift Card, but you have to make sure you reply to your notification email within a fortnight to prevent the prize from being redrawn and passed onto someone else.

At a quick glance, the fourth time point is looking good: The male/female ratio has remained stable at 24%/76% (males are no longer dropping out at a higher rate than females), and the continuation rate from time point one is at 49%, which is pretty good! Your dedication to the study has been brilliant, and I think we'll find some great results from this study. At the moment we're having a lot of fun with time point one, and keeping our eye out for the acceptance and eventual publication of our second paper. Watch this space!

Thanks again to you all for your involvement in our research. Check back here in three-and-a-half weeks for the next prize draw.


All the best,

Miri

This week Ryan Rivera has kindly written us a guest article on the relationships between anxiety and premature ejaculation. His own anxiety made it hard for him to interact with his sexual partners, until he eventually found relief. He now contributes to a website on controlling anxiety at www.calmclinic.com.

Let us know what you think, or if you find the ideas helpful. Enjoy!


Anxiety and Premature Ejaculation

Premature ejaculation is a common sexual problem. While premature ejaculation has no official definition, many describe it as ejaculation that occurs before the individual wishes to ejaculate, in a way that causes shame, self-doubt, stress, or other negative emotions between either the male or their sexual partner.

There is a strong relationship between anxiety and premature ejaculation. As such, controlling your anxiety may be a worthwhile treatment for controlling premature ejaculation.

How Anxiety Causes Premature Ejaculation (PE)

Anxiety is still one of the most common causes of PE. Men that have anxiety about their sexual performance tend to dwell on their ability to control their release as soon as they penetrate their partner, and the fear of releasing early both reduces their ability to enjoy the intercourse and causes them to struggle to hold back completion.

Performance anxiety can also interfere with the quality of the sexual intercourse, where nervousness causes the individual to move too fast or too slow, rather than control their ejaculation. It may also cause them to fear telling their partner to stop if they're feeling over-stimulated, so that their partner's actions cause them to ejaculate early, causing additional emotional difficulties.

How PE Causes Anxiety

Similarly, PE tends to cause more anxiety. Recall that focusing on the sensations rather than enjoying the intercourse can cause PE. After someone ejaculates early, they may worry that it will happen again, and that causes even more of a focus on their ability to control their completion and a cycle of further anxiety.

Similarly, many men equate their sexual performance with self-worth. Men that suffer from PE may become more likely to experience anxiety with the opposite sex, regardless of sexual situations, and this anxiety can spin off to other aspects of their lives.

Controlling Anxiety During Intercourse

In order to overcome PE, the individual will need to both control anxiety during intercourse and learn to regain the ability to enjoy intercourse rather than think about their performance. There are several strategies that individuals with PE can implement in order to regain their sexual confidence. These include:

• Talking With Your Partner – One of the biggest issues with PE is anxiety over how the partner will react to their sexual problems. So men try not to talk about their PE problems with their partner, only to fear they won't be able to satisfy their partner, and ultimately increase their likelihood of PE. Talking with your partner before intercourse can be an incredible help, taking much of the stress off of the person's shoulders.

• Practicing Control – When your partner is accepting of your PE, you can then practice control. You can do this by using the stop and start method. After penetration, you can thrust until you feel over-excited, and then stop. Continue this behavior over and over until you learn to get used to the sensations without ejaculating. This is a type of behavioral training that teaches your body not to rush to completion.

• Repeating Intercourse – Often if the individual can regain their sexual confidence they'll be less likely to suffer from PE. One way to do this is to have intercourse two or three times in a row. After the first episode of PE, the individual will generally experience fewer sensations in their genitals, giving them more control by default. This gives them a longer opportunity to satisfy their partner, and when their partners are satisfied, the individual will be less anxious during their next sexual encounter.

Anxiety help in every aspect of their life should also be a priority, and both the PE sufferer and their partner need to be patient – those with PE will experience anxiety for a while, but with each successful attempt at controlling PE, the likelihood of experiencing anxiety and PE again decreases.

Responses for the third time point are now all complete. Five hundred and twenty-nine people completed this time point, which is great (still sitting above that 50% drop-out rate).
I've just done the third prize draw, and emailed the lucky winner. Just a reminder to add noreply@qemailserver.com to your Safe List to ensure the 'winner' emails don't do straight to junk. Also that you need to reply to the email within a fortnight to claim the prize, otherwise it will be re-drawn.

The fourth prize draw will be in four weeks time. Good luck!


All the best,

Miri

I've been running some numbers comparing the group of people who completed time point one with the people who went on to complete time point two, and have found some interesting results:

• Men are more likely than women to have dropped out after time point one. Forty-eight percent of men dropped out, as opposed to only thirty-five percent of women. This is a bit of a bummer, but not entirely unexpected ;)
• Younger people were more likely than older people to drop out. The mean age for time point one was 32 years, whereas the mean age for time point two was 33 years (not a big difference, but a statistically significant one). The average age of people who dropped out between surveys was 31 years.
• The only other patter of difference was between people who have completed uni education, compared with people who had not completed high school education, where people with a university degree were more likely to continue on to the second time point.
• Other than that, having kids, employment status, relationship status, and the time schedule that people responded on made no difference to their likelihood of staying in the survey.

That's it for now! We'll see if this pattern continues into time point three.

Also, the second prize has now been claimed. Keep your fingers crossed for time point three!


Cheers,

Miri

Hi all,

The second prize draw is still unclaimed, so make sure you check your 'Junk' folders, and add noreply@qemailserver.com to your email 'Safe List'. The winner has one week to claim the prize before it's re-drawn for another lucky winner! The third prize draw will happen two weeks from tomorrow, so keep your fingers and toes crossed.

I'll have a look at the data sets tomorrow to see if there's any interesting differences in the demographics between groups.


All the best,

Miri

I've just sent an email to the lucky winner for the second prize draw! So check those emails...

There's four to go, so don't lose hope yet! Remember you have two weeks to claim the prize before it is re-drawn.

There were 1013 complete responses at time point one, and 616 complete entries at time point two (61%), which sounds good to me. Next week I'll do an analysis of the differences between the time points to have a look at how representative/consistent our demographics (age, gender, etc.) are for these two time points.

Paper two is almost ready for submission, so hopefully we'll have new results to report to you soon!


Thanks for checking back in, and good luck with the rest of the prize draws!


Cheers,

Miri

I've just sent the email to the lucky winner of the prize draw for the first time point! So check your emails...

The prize draw for time point two will be done in a week, when everyone has completed it.

If you receive an email to let you know you have won one of the prizes, you need to reply to the email within a fortnight with a postal address to which we can forward the card. We will then contact you again a week after we send the card, asking you to confirm that you have received it. By replying to the email with a postal address, we will take it that you agree to this condition (confirmation of receipt of the card).

Please note that the emails are not linked to your ID number that you used throughout the study, so your responses will remain anonymous.


Good luck!

Miri

Just wanted to write a quick note to let you know I'm not neglecting you.

We're still waiting on final approval for the cash cards, but as soon as we have it, I'll do the prize draw for the first time point. To do this, I'll number the complete responses at the first time point from 1-1013, and use a random number generator to generate a random number (I know, who would have thought?!) between 1 and 1013. Whoever matches up with that number will be the lucky winner of the first $100 Mastercard Cash Card! I'll use the internal email system of Qualtrics (the survey software) to send an email to the winner, and give them a fortnight to reply with a postal address or PO Box that I can send their card to. If we don't hear back in that time after a reminder email, I'll repeat this process until the prize is claimed.

Make sure noreply@qemailserver.com is on your email 'Safe List' to ensure good news can get to you without any hiccups!


I'll keep you posted as news develops.


Cheers,

Miri

Our first paper in this field of research was officially published online yesterday! The link to the paper is here, but you will need access to SpringerLink, or a subscription to the journal to access the full paper. Alternatively, I can email you a private copy of the paper if you contact me. This is an exciting first step towards getting attention for our research, and a baby step towards change in the way we diagnose and treat symptoms of depression, anxiety and sexual problems.

We're also starting the wind-up for our data collection. Just waiting on final approval from uni to buy the cash cards, and then we'll (finally) start the prize draws! Hoping to have the first time point prize drawn by next week, and the second time point drawn a fortnight after that. Then there will be one prize draw each month until we finish data collection all together (around the end of September).

Make sure you keep completing each time point! There's nothing we can do now if participation rates drop. I've started working on the data sets, so I can let you know more about demographic information, and participation/drop out rates soon.

Thanks again, and always, for your ongoing interest and participation in our research.


Cheers,

Miri

I've now deactivated the first time point. Over 1000 people completed it, which is brilliant! Over the next few weeks I'll be starting the analysis of the data set for this first time point, and I can start letting you all know about the demographic breakdown. It will be a while until we have conclusive results to report, but I'll keep you posted along the journey. If you put down your email (at the end of the sixth time point) to receive the results by email, there's no need to check back here because you'll find out the big news that way. If not, or if you didn't have a chance to participate in this research, keep checking back to this page, and I'll post about any big news.

Thanks again to all of your help in spreading the word! Who would have though it would be so hard to get people to complete a study like this?! It's a testament to those of you involved; six time points is a lot!


Cheers,

Miri