The findings are based on a survey of 436 men, aged 18 to 67, who responded to an Internet survey after being recruited through newspaper ads and a blog on a condom sales company Web site. The survey asked the men about how a condom fit the last time they used one while having sex with a female.

Nearly 45 percent said they'd used a condom that fit poorly the last time they had sex during the previous three months. These men were more than 2.5 times more likely to say their condom broke or slipped compared to those who said their condoms fit well. And they were five times more likely to say they experienced irritation to the penis.

The men whose condoms fit poorly were also about twice as likely to say that the condoms made it difficult for them, their partners or both to reach orgasm. Not surprisingly, this made intercourse less pleasurable, the study authors noted.

And the men with poor-fitting condoms were twice as likely to say they took off the condoms before they finished having sex, the survey found.

The findings "emphasize the point that men and their female sex partners may benefit from public health efforts designed to promote the improved fit of condoms," the researchers wrote.

The study, which surveyed men through the Web site of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, is published online in February in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on condoms.

SOURCE: BMJ Journals, news release, Feb. 16, 2010

-- Randy Dotinga