Discussing sexuality in the clinical setting: The impact of a brief training program for oncology health professionals to enhance communication about sexuality

Aim: Cancer and its treatments can profoundly affect a person's sexuality and self-image. However, oncology health professionals (OHP) are often reluctant to discuss these issues with patients. Cancer Council Victoria developed a short workshop to increase OHP's discussion of sexuality issues with cancer patients. We examined the immediate and longer term effect of workshop participation on perceived barriers to these discussions, their confidence in initiating the discussions, and changes in the frequency of their discussing sexuality issues with patients. Method: Twenty-one workshops were conducted involving 155 OHP. The workshops were run by trained facilitators and incorporated cognitive, behavioral and experiential components. A major part of the workshop involved role-playing with simulated patients (trained actors). Questionnaires assessing 20 perceived barriers, seven confidence items and seven practices concerning sexuality discussion were completed by the participants pre-workshop, immediately post-workshop, and 8-weeks post-workshop. Results: Overall 89 participants completed all three assessment phases. Data were analysed to assess change in perceived barriers, confidence and behavior across the three assessment points. Mean scores on 16 of the 20 barriers significantly decreased and scores on all seven confidence measures significantly increased between pre- and immediate post-workshop. Most these changes were maintained 8 weeks later. The mean frequency of sexuality issue discussion in the previous 2 months increased significantly from 3.34 times at pre-workshop to 3.82 times 8 weeks later (P = 0.003). Conclusion: This workshop appeared to reduce perceived barriers, increase confidence and increase actual practices around discussing sexuality issues with cancer patients.