Unmet Sexual Health Needs of Patients and Female Partners Following Diagnosis and Treatment for Prostate Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer (PCa) and its treatment can have significant and pervasive sexual side effects for patients and their partners; however, partner needs are not well understood, and most resources do not incorporate partner priorities.

AIM: Our objective was to perform a qualitative study to identify unmet sexual needs of patients and female partners after PCa diagnosis.

METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study of posts to the Inspire Us TOO Prostate Cancer Online Support and Discussion Community. Overall, 6,193 posts were identified in the Sexual Health & Intimacy forum of the community, of which 661 posts were from female authors. A random sample of 10% (n = 66) of posts from female partners and an equal number of randomly selected posts from male patients were analyzed.

OUTCOMES: We assessed sexual health themes among patients and female partners.

RESULTS: Multiple themes emerged that were unique to female partners of PCa survivors. These included expanding the sexual repertoire, feeling invisible, contextualizing sexual intimacy within the broader picture of survival, and addressing relationship concerns. Patients and their partners also shared common sexual health themes, including coming to terms with changes in sexual function and frustration with clinicians. Both patients and their partners use online health communities to get support and share their experiences with sexual recovery and use of sexual aids. Psychosocial treatments were infrequently mentioned, and may be particularly helpful to address partner concerns.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: A common concern for couples was not receiving sufficient information from healthcare providers regarding sexual side effects from PCa and its treatment.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: Strengths of the study include leveraging a unique data source to address an understudied topic of sexual health concerns among partners after PCa diagnosis. However, members of an online community may not be representative of all couples facing PCa. Also, this analysis is limited to female partners of patients with PCa, and further study is underway to examine the sexual health needs among gay and bisexual couples.

CONCLUSION: Both patients and female partners have many unmet sexual health needs during PCa survivorship, and designing interventions to incorporate partner perspectives may improve the management of sexual side effects of PCa for couples.