Addressing sexuality concerns in women with gynecologic cancer: Chinese nurses’ attitudes and practice Miss Ying Chun ZENG (Chloe) MPhil. Student Supervisor: Prof Alice Loke School of Nursing The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong China Email:
[email protected]
Outline
Introduction Study objectives Methods Results Summary of findings Chinese culture and sexuality Implications
Introduction
Sexuality (Byers 1998, Rice 2000, Kozier et al. 2004)
Sexual activity: not limited to sexual intercourse and including any intimate activity of a sexual nature Sexual function: the ability to engage in the act of sex Body image: pervading individuals’ biological being and sense thereof Role identity: gender and sexual identity Sexual relationships: including marital and other intimate relationships
Sexual health
A state of physical, emotional, mental and social well‐being in relations to one’s sexuality (WHO 2004)
Sexuality and sexual health in women with gynecologic cancer
Reduced sexual activity: with between 33% and 50% of this population reporting a complete void of sexual activity (Lutgendorf et al. 2002) Sexual dysfunction: the estimating rate ranging from 20% to 100% (Tabano et al. 2002). e.g. loss of sexual desire, decreased arousal, dyspareunia, and difficulty in achieving orgasm (Jensen et al. 2003, 2004) Poor body image: loss of hair, loss of attractiveness, and worrying about how they feel sexually Role identity disturbance: disturbances of gender identity, loss of child‐bearing capacity (Gotheridge & Dresner 2002) Sexual and marital relationship problems: women were concerned that a lack of sexual activity would affect their relationship and cause marital problems (Stead et al. 2007). (Juraskova et al. 2003)
The importance of considering sexuality issues
Sexuality and sexual health has been increasingly recognized as an integral aspect of quality of life during and after gynecologic cancer treatment (Juraskova et al. 2003) Gynecologic cancer patients rated sexuality as one of three issues of central importance for the quality of their daily living (Ekwall et al. 2003) There is a growing acknowledgement that these needs are not being adequately addressed by healthcare providers (Park et al. 2009, Stead et al. 2003, 2007)
Possible barriers in addressing women’s sexuality concerns
Nurses’ prevalent myths and prejudices:
Patients with cancer being too ill to be interested in sex (Sunquist & Yee 2003)
Sexual activity may negatively impact women’s recovery from gynecologic cancer (Molassiotis et al. 2000)
Inadequately prepared with knowledge and skills (Stilos et al. 2008)
Feeling of embarrassment (Tsai 2004) Not within professional responsibility (Katz 2005)
Objectives
To describe Chinese nurses’ attitudes and beliefs toward the sexuality concerns of gynecologic cancer patients To investigate their current practice in addressing gynecologic cancer patients’ sexuality concerns To explore possible facilitators or barriers influencing their nursing practice
Methods
Study design:
Research settings:
A descriptive and correlational study 3 tumor and 3 general hospitals’ gynecologic units 3 cities: Changsha, Wuxi, Xi’an
Sample
Sampling strategy: a convenience sample Inclusion criteria: Chinese nurses working in above research settings, and front‐line clinical nurses in the delivery of direct patient care
Instruments
A demographic sheet: age, education levels, working experience, etc. A 50‐item inventory:
Part 1: The SABS (12 items) Part 2: Inventory of practice in Addressing Sexuality Concerns (10 items) Part 3: The Inventory of Facilitators about Sexuality Issue Discussion (8 items) Part 4: The Inventory of Barriers about Sexuality Issue Discussion (20 items)
Reliability and validity of the inventories :
Face validity: 3 clinical oncology nurses Construct validity: factor analysis Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha : 0.698, 0.874, 0.803, & 0.888
Data collection & data analysis
Data collection:
Ethical consideration Data collection periods: from Dec 2009 to Feb 2010 by a clinical nurse with research training
Data analysis: SPSS 16.0
Descriptive analysis Pearson correlation coefficient Multiple Linear Regression
Characteristics
Results
Demographics
Nurses’ SABS scores
Figure 1 ↓
Facilitators or barriers about sexuality issue discussion in nursing practice
Table 2 ↓
Sexuality issue discussion in nursing practice
Table 1 →
Table 3 ↓
Predictors of sexuality issue discussion in nursing practice
Table 4 ↓
No. (%) (n = 202)
Age group, y
