Objectives: Many chronic diseases and their medications may induce sexual problems. This study aimed to evaluate whether general practitioners (GPs) bring up patients’ sexual health issues during appointments with patients who have chronic diseases.

Study Design: A web-based questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 1,000 GPs in Finland.

Main Outcome Measures: The study was to determine GPs’ self-reported inquiries into sexual problems in patients with chronic diseases and GPs’ awareness of medications inducing sexual problems.

Results: Only 16.2% of the GPs inquired about sexual health issues, typically during appointments dealing with reproductive organs. A majority (66.9%) considered sexual problems to be side effects of medications, but only 17.9% followed up about them. Compared to the male GPs, the female GPs were more likely to inquire about gynecologic patients’ sexual issues (OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.05–2.99), but less likely to query urologic (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.35–0.91) and neurologic patients (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.17–0.72). The GPs aged 40–49 and 50–65 were more likely than those aged 27–39 to inquire about sexual health issues among patients with cardiovascular (OR 2.87, 95% CI 1.11–7.44, OR 2.89, 95% CI 1.16–7.19) and neurological (OR 4.63, 95% CI 1.45–14.82, OR 5.68, 95% CI 1.87–17.23) diseases.

Conclusions: GPs seldom inquire about sexual problems from patients with chronic diseases or after prescribing medications for these conditions, which may lead to underdiagnosing and undertreating sexual problems.