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AbstractThis article focuses on how couple disagreement affects the translation of fertility desires into fertility intentions, and the implementation of fertility intentions through the initiation of proceptive behavior. We use data collected by interview from the husbands and wives of 201 married couples with no children, and 200 married couples with one child. Data were collected at four times, spanning a 3‐1/2‐year interval. The effect on fertility intentions of couple disagreement in fertility desires was modeled with regression analysis after disaggregating individuals in positive disagreement with their spouses (having stronger desires) from those in negative disagreement with their spouses (having weaker desires). The effect on proceptive behavior of couple disagreement in fertility intentions was similarly modeled. The results reveal different patterns of positive/negative disagreement that vary by sex, parity, and time, and that differ for three different fertility desireslintentions and for the prediction of proceptive behavior. The discussion focuses on interpreting these findings in terms of a psychological state identified as "responsiveness to spouse" and on explaining why this state varies by sex and across the life course.

The dopaminergic system in the brain seems to play an important role in the regulation of sexual behaviour. The relationship between genes for the D1, D2 and D4 dopamine receptors and age at first sexual intercourse (AFSI) was examined in a sample of 414 non-Hispanic, European–American men and women. A significant association was observed between a DRD2 allele and AFSI and an even stronger association when the DRD2 allele was interacted with a DRD1 allele. A constrained regression model was constructed predicting AFSI using sex and a group of nine psychosocial variables as predictors. Adding the DRD2 and the DRD2-by-DRD1 predictors to this model increased the explained variance by 23 and 55%, respectively. Although these findings suggest a stronger association among males than among females, further research will be necessary to clarify this question, as well as to establish whether the observed association holds in other racial/ethnic groups.

BackgroundThe University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment (CAPRA) is a novel preoperative index which predicts the risk of biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy. The performance of the index is at least as good as the best available instruments based on clinical variables, and the 0 to 10 score is simple to calculate for both clinical and research purposes. This study used a large external dataset to validate CAPRA.MethodsData were abstracted from the Shared Equal Access Regional Cancer Hospital (SEARCH) database, a registry of men who underwent radical prostatectomy at 4 Veterans Affairs and 1 active military medical center. Of 2096 men in the database, 1346 (64%) had full data available to calculate the CAPRA score. Performance of the CAPRA score was assessed with proportional hazards regression, survival analysis, and the concordance (c) index.ResultsOf the studied patients, 41% were non-Caucasian, and their mean age was 62 years. Twenty-six percent suffered recurrence; median follow-up among patients who did not recur was 34 months. The hazard ratio (HR) for each 1-point increase in CAPRA was 1.39 (95% CI [confidence interval], 1.31-1.46). The 5-year recurrence-free survival rate ranged from 86% for CAPRA 0-1 patients to 21% for CAPRA 7-10 patients. Increasing CAPRA scores were significantly associated with increasing risk of adverse pathologic outcomes. The c-index for CAPRA for the validation set was 0.68, compared with 0.66 for the original development set.ConclusionsThe UCSF-CAPRA accurately predicted both biochemical and pathologic outcomes after radical prostatectomy among a large, diverse, cohort of men. These results validated the effectiveness of this powerful and straightforward instrument.