Evaluation of Early Maladaptive Schemas and Metacognition in Vaginismus Patients

According to the cognitive approach in the vaginismus etiology, it is accepted that the development of the vaginismic response is caused by the cognitive processes, meaning, interpretation and perception disorders. Many researchers have described negative cognitive schemas and information processing errors in patients with sexual dysfunction. Metacognition and schemas in vaginismus patients have not been studied together. We performed 30 women in the vaginismus group and 30 healthy women as a control group in order to test the hypothesis that our study was different in terms of early maladaptive schemas and metacognition according to the control group in vaginismus patients and that there were some early maladaptive schema subtypes and metacognition subtypes. Participants were assessed by sociodemographic data form, young schema scale short form, metacognition scale, Arizona sexual experience scale, Glombock Rust sexual satisfaction scale. When we looked at the scales in our study, there were differences in four subscale scores ('pessimism', 'approval seeking', 'punishment' and 'high standards') from the control group in the vaginismus group. When the metacognitive characteristics were examined, there was a difference in the scores of 'uncontrollability and danger', 'control of thinking', 'cognitive awareness' subscale scores in the control group. Our study is significant in that it is a guide for future studies that will examine the change in cognitive parameters before and after treatment on a larger scale.