Joana Carvalho

Joana Carvalho
University of Aveiro | UA

PhD

About

144
Publications
37,101
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2,945
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Introduction
Joana Carvalho works at University of Aveiro, Portugal. Joana does research in Clinical Sexology, Forensic Sexology, and Experimental Sex Research.

Publications

Publications (144)
Article
Full-text available
Sexual satisfaction can be important for overall well-being and has been described as a sexual right. Individual and cultural factors, such as gender identity and sexual orientation, may influence the ways in which individuals describe, share, or experience their sexuality. The aims of the present study were to examine the factor structure of the f...
Article
Introduction Sexual health concerns are common and significantly impact quality of life, but many people do not seek treatment due to embarrassment and other barriers. A biopsychosocial model of assessment and treatment acknowledges the biological, psychological, and social contributors to sexual difficulties and suggests that all these domains sho...
Article
Full-text available
Sexual desire is a complex construct with important implications for sexual functioning and well-being. In this research, we translated the Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI-2), a widely used scale for assessing sexual (desire), into 25 languages from English and used data from the International Sex Survey (ISS) to (a) investigate its psychometric prope...
Article
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Introduction The Arizona Sexual Experiences Scale (ASEX) is a brief questionnaire that evaluates five major aspects of sexual function: sex drive, arousal, erectile function/vaginal lubrication, ability to reach orgasm, and satisfaction with orgasm. An advantage of the ASEX is its simplicity and brevity (five items), making it suitable for the scre...
Article
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The current study aims to test the hypothetical link between hentai pornography use, rape myths endorsement, and sexually aggressive strategies. Furthermore, it aims to capture if such a trajectory echoes across gender and human-realistic pornography. The work targeted a sample of 906 college students, of whom 533 were men and 373 were women, who c...
Article
Asexuality is a sexual orientation centered around low or absent sexual attraction. Despite the growth of empirical scholarship on asexuality, laboratory sex research with asexual individuals remains significantly underutilized. As such, we conducted a qualitative survey aimed at examining asexual individuals’ perceptions of laboratory sex research...
Article
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The UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Model and the various psychometric instruments developed and validated based on this model are well established in clinical and research settings. However, evidence regarding the psychometric validity, reliability, and equivalence across multiple countries of residence, languages, or gender identities, including gender...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Previous findings have shown that neuroticism is a higher-order vulnerability factor in the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunctions and can have an impact on the attentional processing of sexual stimuli; however, the influence of psychosexual dimensions on the early automatic phases of such cognitive processes has not been es...
Article
Sexual Violence (SV) is a public health problem with serious long-term consequences for victims. This scoping review aimed at summarizing the implementation, methodology, characteristics, and efficacy of SV prevention programs conducted in school and community settings with middle and high school students. This study also gathered recommendations f...
Article
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Motivations for pornography use may vary across gender identities, sexual orientations, and geographical regions, warranting examination to promote individual and public health. The aims of this study were to validate the Pornography Use Motivations Scale (PUMS) in a diverse, multicultural sample, and develop a short form (PUMS-8) that can assess a...
Article
Background. Depression and anxiety are among the most prevalent mental health issues experienced worldwide. However, whereas cross-cultural studies utilize psychometrically valid and reliable scales, fewer can meaningfully compare these conditions across different groups. To address this gap, the current study aimed to psychometrically assess the B...
Article
Objectives: This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the P4 suicide screener in a multinational sample. The primary goal was to evaluate the reliability and validity of the scale and investigate its convergent validity by analyzing its correlation with depression, anxiety, and substance use. Study design: The study design is a cro...
Article
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Background The three-item Sexual Distress Scale (SDS-3) has been frequently used to assess distress related to sexuality in public health surveys and research on sexual wellbeing. However, its psychometric properties and measurement invariance across cultural, gender and sexual subgroups have not yet been examined. This multinational study aimed to...
Article
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Introduction: The addition of compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD) into the ICD-11 chapter on mental, behavioral, or neurodevelopmental disorders has greatly stimulated research and controversy around compulsive sexual behavior, or what has been termed "hypersexual disorder," "sexual addiction," "porn addiction," "sexual compulsivity," and "...
Article
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Background and aims Problematic pornography use (PPU) is a common manifestation of the newly introduced Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder diagnosis in the 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. Although cultural, gender‐ and sexual orientation‐related differences in sexual behaviors a...
Chapter
Courtship, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse are sometimes difficult to be differentiated. Since each of these concepts is characterized by complexity and ambiguity, obstacles to their conceptualization were briefly discussed. This chapter sought to acknowledge that the borders between these behaviors are very subtle, and there is an emergent nee...
Article
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Objective We analyzed adult ADHD symptoms in a cross-cultural context, including investigating the occurrence and potential correlates of adult ADHD and psychometric examination of the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) Screener. Method Our analysis is based on a large-scale research project involving 42 countries (International Sex Survey, N=72,...
Article
Full-text available
Background and aims: Problematic pornography use (PPU) is a common manifestation of the newly introduced Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder diagnosis in the 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. Although cultural, gender- and sexual orientation-related differences in sexual behaviors...
Article
Introduction: Prostate cancer is the second-most prevalent cancer diagnosis worldwide among males. Although prostate cancer affects the physical, sexual, and mental health of patients, the impact of prostate cancer on partners has also been increasingly recognized. Hence, taking a dyadic approach is of relevance. Moreover, there is evidence of the...
Preprint
Full-text available
This scoping review aimed to map existing dyadic studies on the psychosocial adaptation of couples to prostate cancer.
Article
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Introduction Sexual violence (SV) perpetrated by women against men is socially dismissed and underrepresented in research. The aim of the current study was to explore the perspectives of university students (women and men) on women-perpetrated SV against men. Methods A total of 19 undergraduate students were presented with a vignette describing a...
Article
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Introduction: Despite being a widely used screening questionnaire, there is no consensus on the most appropriate measurement model for the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). Furthermore, there have been limited studies on its measurement invariance across cross-cultural subgroups, genders, and sexual orientations. Aims: The present...
Conference Paper
Embodied human‑like sex technologies (immobile sex dolls and AI enhanced- interactive and moving- sex robots) are becoming an increasingly discussed topic in recent years. Although a major area of scholarly work to date revolves around speculative assessments (either utopian or dystopian) about their potential social impact, little research has exp...
Article
The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) is an instrument to screen substance use-related health risks. However, little is known whether the ASSIST could be further shortened while remaining psychometrically sound across different countries, languages, gender identities, and sexual orientation-based groups. The study a...
Article
The current study aimed at translating and validating the TSMQ into Portuguese-European (TSMQ-PT) and to investigate its psychometric properties. Three online studies were conducted with independent samples collected between September 2020 and March 2022. Study 1 tested the exploratory factorial structure (N = 325; 206 women); Study 2 explored the...
Article
Full-text available
Background and aims: Despite its inclusion in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases, there is a virtual paucity of high-quality scientific evidence about compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD), especially in underrepresented and underserved populations. Therefore, we comprehensively examined CSBD across 42 countries,...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second-most frequently diagnosed oncologic condition among biological men, affecting physical and psychological well-being, as well as sexual health and quality of life. Prior research has shown that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can be effective in addressing a range of psychological and sexual proble...
Article
Introduction Literature on vulvodynia treatment is heterogeneous regarding intervention type and study quality. A recently published systematic review (SR) of treatments focusing on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCTs for provoked vestibulodynia (a vulvodynia subtype) concluded that most studies had very low certainty of evidence, whic...
Article
Introduction Literature on vulvodynia treatment is heterogeneous in terms of intervention type and study quality. A recently published systematic review (SR) of treatments focusing on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCTs for provoked vestibulodynia (a vulvodynia subtype) concluded that most studies had very low certainty of evidence, wh...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Research suggests a linkage between sexual boredom and sexual desire but without a detailed understanding how these are intertwined. Individuals in long-term monogamous relationships seem especially affected by low sexual desire and might present with varying degrees of sexual boredom. Objective This study aimed to identify different...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Past research has shown that neuroticism is a higher-order vulnerability factor in developing and maintaining emotional disorders and is related to an increased risk of sexual dysfunction. In a recent study, neuroticism was found to impact the automatic attention towards sexual stimuli, but the influence of psychosexual dimensions on s...
Article
Objective: Despite alarming evidence on sexual violence against women, little is known about men’s emotional responses to rape and how these may be involved in sexual violence dynamics. Accordingly, our aim was to capture how rape scenarios are emotionally appraised. Methods: The current study evaluated men’s (N = 30) self-reported and psychophysio...
Article
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Τhe aim of this study was to provide a detailed understanding of unprompted audience responses to a literary story of female-on-male rape on Goodreads. Thematic analysis of 429 reviews revealed 5 key themes and 16 sub-themes, which evolved around appraising the social function of the book, evaluating its literary features, assessing the depiction o...
Article
Background Previous findings have shown that neuroticism is a higher-order vulnerability factor in the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunctions and can have an impact on the attentional processing of sexual stimuli; however, the influence of psychosexual dimensions on the early automatic phases of such cognitive processes has not been est...
Article
Background Research suggests a general link between sexual boredom and sexual desire, but its understanding is currently very limited. Aim To identify distinct (latent) groups of women and men in long-term relationships based on their reported levels of sexual boredom and sexual desire. Methods Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted in an on...
Chapter
The epidemiology and etiology of male and female sexual dysfunctions should be addressed within a comprehensive biopsychosocial perspective. This perspective considers the interaction between the organic, psychological and cultural factors shaping human sexual response and functioning, allowing for more complete and tailored interventions. In this...
Poster
Objectives The increasing incidence of prostate cancer, along with earlier detection and longer survival years has been raising clinician's questions on how to better treat this disease. Radical prostatectomy is one of the most common treatments, although it can have severe consequences, such as changes in sexual functioning and sexual satisfaction...
Poster
Objectives A cancer diagnosis frequently hinders the experience of a healthy sex life. Prostate cancer is an example of that, as it represents a clinically complex condition that is associated with significant changes in sexual functioning and satisfaction. Although the prevalence of sexual difficulties, sexual suffering, relational problems and se...
Poster
Full-text available
Objectives The increasing incidence of prostate cancer, along with earlier detection and longer survival years has been raising clinician's questions on how to better treat this disease. Radical prostatectomy is one of the most common treatments, although it can have severe consequences, such as changes in sexual functioning and sexual satisfaction...
Article
Surgical treatments for ischemic priapism (IP) include shunts or penile implants. Non-ischemic priapism (NIP) is usually the result of penile/perineal trauma causing an arterial fistula and embolisation may be required. We conducted a systematic review on behalf of the EAU Sexual and Reproductive health Guidelines panel to analyse the available evi...
Article
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited hemoglobin disorder characterized by the occlusion of small blood vessels by sickle-shaped red blood cells. SCD is associated with a number of complications, including ischemic priapism. While SCD accounts for at least one-third of all priapism cases, no definitive treatment strategy has been established to...
Article
Conservative and medical treatments are considered the first step in ischemic priapism (IP) management, although there is no clear evidence regarding their efficacy. We conducted a systematic review on behalf of the EAU Guidelines panel on Sexual and Reproductive health to analyse the available evidence on the efficacy and safety of conservative an...
Article
Introduction The term “paedophilia erotica” was first coined in 1886 by the psychiatrist Krafft-Ebing and it was considered a “psycho-sexual perversion.” It was at the beginning of the twentieth century that the term “pedophilia” was adopted and it started to appear in medical dictionaries. Sexual abuse is legally defined as the engagement in sexua...
Article
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This study investigates the psychometric properties of the Sexually Aggressive Behaviors Scale (SABS) in a sample of 1,632 heterosexual Portuguese female college students, aged between 18 and 39 years old (M = 22.40; SD = 4.31). The internal structure of the scale was investigated, along with analyses of the internal consistency, and validity evide...
Article
Full-text available
There is growing interest on the topic of Sexual Violence (SV) perpetrated by community samples; movements, as the Me Too, have triggered such focus. Researching the validity of core SV measures is now fundamental. Accordingly, this study aimed to assess the structure of the Portuguese version of the Sexually Aggressive Behaviors Scale (SABS-PT) wh...
Preprint
Background: Previous findings have shown that neuroticism is a higher-order vulnerability factor in the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunctions and can have an impact on the attentional processing of sexual stimuli; however, the influence of psychosexual dimensions on the early automatic phases of such cognitive processes has not been es...
Article
Full-text available
Recent findings suggest that the current COVID-19 pandemic has a potential negative impact in several areas of life, including sexual health. However, less is known about the psychological dimensions that may work as vulnerability/protective factors for the development of sexual problems in the current pandemic. The current study used a longitudina...
Article
This study aimed to understand how the endorsement of dysfunctional sexual beliefs is associated with sexual self-esteem and sexually aggressive behavior in male college students; it further tested the mediating role of sexual self-esteem in the relationship between sexual beliefs and sexual aggression. Results revealed significant relationships be...
Article
This study researched how age predicts women’s cognitive and emotional appraisal of sex pictures. One hundred and fifty five women were exposed to romantic, sexually moderate and sexually explicit pictures. Women reported on the emotional valence, subjective sexual arousal, and level of sexual content attributed to the pictures; women’s sexual beli...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose of the Review The World Health Association declared COVID-19 a pandemic more than 1 year ago. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on the topic of women’s sexual health during the pandemic, with a focus on sexual function and sexual pleasure. Our aim is to describe current findings and to discuss implications for women’s sexua...
Article
Context The European Association of Urology (EAU) has updated its guidelines on sexual and reproductive health for 2021. Objective To present a summary of the 2021 version of the EAU guidelines on sexual and reproductive health, including advances and areas of controversy in male infertility. Evidence acquisition The panel performed a comprehensi...
Article
Full-text available
While previous research has argued that neuroticism is a vulnerability factor for the experience of sexual difficulties, the basic cognitive processes associated with the impact of such a personality trait on the processing of sexually explicit stimuli are less understood. The current study examined the influence of neuroticism on the attentional p...
Article
Full-text available
Background Impulsivity is regarded as a key factor underpinning hypersexuality like-conditions. However, impulsivity is a multifaceted construct, and existing research has not been capturing such complexity, which includes the effects of domain-general and domain-specific impulsivity in hypersexuality. Aim The aim of this study was to test the pre...
Article
Full-text available
Research evidence of the attributes of sexual boredom is extremely limited. Understanding variability in the experience of sexual boredom may offer relevant insights for the field of human sexuality. This study aimed to explore the co-occurrence of sexual boredom and other sexuality-related dimensions. The sample consisted of 1021 participants aged...
Article
Context: The present summary of the European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines is based on the latest guidelines on male sexual health published in March 2021, with a last comprehensive update in January 2021. Objective: To present a summary of the 2021 version of the EAU guidelines on sexual and reproductive health. Evidence acquisition:...
Article
Background Past research has revealed the detrimental effects of social isolation and physical distancing measures in health related outcomes. However, only recently COVID-19 confinement measures provided a context to test whether such detrimental effects exist in the human sexuality domain. Aim This study was aimed at testing the relationship bet...
Article
Background Empirical data on sexual boredom are scarce and unsystematized, contrasting with the literature on general boredom. Aim The aim of this review of literature is to verify how sexual boredom is defined in previous research and which relationships were found with sexual functioning, relationship dynamics, or gender. Methods A systematic s...
Article
Accumulating evidence has highlighted the contribution of oxidative stress and sperm DNA fragmentation (SDF) in the pathophysiology of male infertility. SDF has emerged as a novel biomarker of risk stratification for patients undergoing assisted reproductive technologies. Studies have also supported the use of testicular over ejaculated sperm at th...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction In recent months, some attempts were made to understand the impact of COVID-19 on sexual health. Despite recent research that suggests COVID-19 and lockdown measures may eventually impact sexual response and sexual related behaviors, we are missing clinical sexologists’ perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 in sexual health. Such pers...
Article
This study explored the definitions of sexual boredom in a large community sample of Portuguese individuals. A thematic analysis of written responses to the question “What is sexual boredom for you?” was conducted with 653 participants aged 18 to 75 (M = 33.14; SD = 9.01) of multiple genders, sexual orientations, and relationship types. Three main...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Several studies highlighted the role of insula on several functions and in sexual behavior. This exploratory study examines the relationships among genital responses, brain responses, and eye movements, to disentangle the role played by the anterior and posterior insula during different stages of male sexual response and during visual atte...
Article
Asexuality is commonly regarded as lack of sexual attraction. Research in asexuality grew progressively in the past two decades. However, asexuals’ patterns of sexual behavior and psychological processes were not yet systematized. This review searched for articles that could potentially help establishing these patterns. Articles published in Englis...
Article
Background Gender differences in sexual response have targeted individuals' emotional appraisal of mainstream erotica. Yet, evidence reveals that men and women commonly endorse non-normative sexual interests, and no evidence has been collected on their emotional responses toward deviant sexual stimuli. Aim This study was aimed at evaluating gender...
Article
Full-text available
Exposure to Fifty Shades has been associated with different sexual outcomes in women. In this study, we were particularly interested in understanding if exposure to Fifty Shades, and women’s relationship status, was related to different levels of sexual consent in college women: internal consent (feelings when women consent to sex) and external con...
Article
The Dual Control Model of sexual response has been mostly tested with men. As such, there is a lack of evidence on how such model applies to women’s experience of sexual arousal, particularly when they face a threatening situation such as the threat of sexual performance failure. The aim of the current study was to test whether the Dual Control Mod...
Article
Background Some conceptualizations of hypersexuality posit boredom as a possible trigger of hypersexual behavior. Aim This work aims to review published articles addressing the link between boredom and hypersexuality to investigate if this relationship can yet be established based on current empirical data. Methods This systematic review followed...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction There is a lack of theoretical and empirical knowledge on how sexual desire functions and interacts in a relationship. Aim To present an overview of the current conceptualization and operationalization of sexual desire discrepancy (SDD), providing clinical recommendations on behalf of the European Society of Sexual Medicine. Methods...
Article
Introduction: Pedophilic sexual interest is an important risk factor in sexual offender recidivism and remains a key component in the clinical assessment of child sexual offenders and people diagnosed with pedophilia. Despite concerns about the absence of universally accepted standardized clinical assessment methods, there are a number of establis...
Article
Despite considerable public health initiatives in the past century, there remains a significant gender inequality in life expectancy. The Global Burden of Diseases study has highlighted that the life expectancy for men is 70.5 years, compared with 75.6 years for women. This discrepancy in mortality appears to be related to a disproportionately high...
Article
Introduction Gender differences in sexual responses and cognitive and emotional processing to romantic and sexually explicit stimuli have been reported. However, these differences seem to depend on the automaticity of the task that is being used, thus suggesting that gender differences may be the result of specific mechanisms rather than a generali...
Article
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Objective: Research on college sexual violence perpetration suggests there are multiple groups of male perpetrators. It is important to understand the distinctions between perpetrator subgroups to determine appropriate prevention strategies, as multiple strategies may be necessary to address multiple types of perpetrators. However, previous studie...
Article
Full-text available
Olfaction is often linked to mating behavior in nonhumans. Additionally, studies in mating behavior have shown that women seem to be more affected by odor cues than men. However, the relationship between odor cues and sexual response - specifically, sexual arousal - has not been studied yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the e...
Article
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There were 4 cells in the original Table 2 that reported SEM values instead of SDs. A corrected version of the table is provided below. In the Results section, the corresponding corrections are as follows.
Article
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Past research has supported that community women engage in sexually coercive strategies as a means to initiate sexual intercourse with men. However, at the present state of the knowledge, there is a great lack of scientific information on the psychological characterization of these women. In accordance, the aim of the present study was to character...