Discussing Sexual Health in the Medical Oncologist ’s Practice: Exploring Current Practice and Challenges

AbstractSexuality is a significant quality-of-life concern for many cancer patients. Patients may be disadvantaged if they are not informed and not offered sexual health care. We sought to reveal oncologists ’ current practice and opinions concerning sexual counselling. The aim of this study was to explore the knowledge, attitude and practice patterns of Dutch medical oncologists regarding treatment-related sexual dysfunction. Questionnaires were sent to 433 members of the Dutch Society of Medical Onc ology. The majority (81.5%) of the 120 responding medical oncologists (response rate 30.6%) stated they discussed sexual function with fewer than half of their patients. At the same time, 75.8% of the participating oncologists agreed that addressing sexual function is their responsibility. Sexual fu nction was discussed more often with younger patients and patients with a curative treatment intent. Barriers for avoiding discussing sexual function were lack of time (56.1%), training (49.5%) and advanced age of the patient (50.4%). More than half (64.6%) stated they had little knowledge about the subject and the majority (72.9%) wanted to acquire additional training in sexual function counselling. Medical oncologists accept that sexual function counselling falls within their profession, yet they admit to not counselling patients routinely concerning sexual function. Only in a minority of ca ses do medical oncologists inform their patients about sexual side effects of treatment. ...
Source: Journal of Cancer Education - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research