Introduction:
Despite 40-100% of people with cancer reporting sexual health concerns, implementation of best-practice guidelines on sexual health care as a component of comprehensive cancer care has been limited. This study aims to implement best practice recommendations through the development of a sexual health clinic for people affected by cancer. To co-design the clinic, consumers’ and practitioners’ experiences first needed to be understood and narrated through “trigger films”.
Methods:
Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants to undertake a 20-minute semi-structured online interview. Three consumers, each affected by cervical, prostate, and breast cancer, and five practitioners (2 psychologists, 2 oncologists and 1 dietician) participated. The interviews were edited and compiled into two ten-minute trigger films to be shown in co-design workshops.*
Results:
Consumers reported that sexual health should be routinely brought up at the outset as current limited conversations focus only on biological aspects instead of psychological impacts. They advocated for in-house trusted and specialised resources as they found it difficult to find and filter online information. They also expressed that unless clinicians bring up sexual health, patients feel their concerns cannot be addressed or that bringing them up is “weird”. Agreeing with the importance of sexual health and frequency/timing of conversations, practitioners mentioned that training, awareness of resources and clear referral pathways are required as they find it challenging to ask patients’ questions about sexual health that they cannot answer. They emphasised that screening systems must be developed to overcome time constraints in an “already struggling healthcare system”. Workshop participants echoed these concerns, suggesting the trigger films be used to raise wider awareness.
Conclusion:
Education resources must be developed for practitioners with the option of specialised training to build referral pathways, and systems to reinforce conversations on sexual health must be embedded into existing service delivery to normalise concerns.