Background: Sexual self-concept is a cognitive evaluation which refers to a person's perception of tendencies and self-sexuality and may be affected by factors such as chronic illnesses. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare sexual self-concept in married diabetic women with married non-diabetic women.
Methods: This Analytical cross-sectional study was performed on 200 married diabetic women and 200 non-diabetic women referred to healthcare centers of Gorgan. Inclusion criteria were: high school education or more, Iranian nationality, living with their spouses for the past 4 weeks, and getting married once. Exclusion criteria were: history of adverse events in the past three months, identified physical, psychological and sexual problems, having psychiatric disorders diagnosis by a psychiatrist, current couple's drug and alcohol addiction, pregnancy, menopause, infertility, and lactation. Samples were selected by systematic random sampling. Data were collected using Farsi Multidimensional Sexual Self-Concept Questionnaire and were analyzed by SPSS16 software using Mann-Whitney nonparametric test.
Results: The results showed that the mean of positive sexual self-concept (103/2 ± 25/59) and the mean score of situational sexual self-concept (33/6± 11/3) in diabetic women were significantly lower than the mean scores of similar areas in non-diabetic women who showed positive sexual self-concept as 111.41 ±24/59 and situational sexual self-concept as 38/2 ± 11/04. Furthermore, the mean score of negative sexual self-concept (27/9 ± 8/5) in diabetic women was significantly higher than the mean scores of similar areas in non-diabetic women (24/9 ± 7/09).
 Conclusions: Diabetes is known as an effective factor on women's sexual issues such as sexual self-concept. According to the results of this study, it seems that some interventions must be designed to improve the positive and situational sexual self-concept and to reduce negative sexual self-concept.