Sexual Health Discussion with Patients Sexual health is a key component of a person’s overall health. It is, therefore,important for healthcare providers to obtain sexual history of their patients in order to providethem with adequate sexual health advice and medical interventions that address their sexualhealth problems (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). Patients can […]
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Sexual health is a key component of a person’s overall health. It is, therefore,
important for healthcare providers to obtain sexual history of their patients in order to provide
them with adequate sexual health advice and medical interventions that address their sexual
health problems (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). Patients can only
provide such history when they are willing to open up.
To get patients to open up and provide their sexual history, healthcare providers
should first establish an atmosphere where patients will feel comfortable and trust them. Such
an atmosphere is created through establishment of rapport between the patient and the
healthcare provider. Once rapport has been established, the healthcare provider can then start
asking the patient questions about their sexual history in a non-judgmental manner and using
neutral terms (CDC). For instance, instead of using “wife”, “husband”, “boyfriend”, or
“girlfriend”, the healthcare provider should use a neutral term such as “partner”.
Apart from using neutral terms that show that the healthcare provider has not assumed
anything about the patient, the provider should also avoid reacting overtly to information that
the patient provides them with (Singh, 2018). Overt reactions may make the patients to feel
that they are being judged by the healthcare provider. They may, therefore, become reticent
and avoid sharing further information.
Lastly, the healthcare provider should be attentive to the reactions of the patient to
questions that they are asked. If the patient feels offended about a given question, the
provider should find a way of rephrasing the question (CDC). Alternatively, they may explain
to the patient the reason why they are asking the question.
SEXUAL HEALTH DISCUSSION WITH PATIENTS 3
These precautionary steps should be adhered when seeking information from both
general population and special population patients. However, for special population patients
such as LGBTQ patients, extra precautions should be taken not just in the manner the
questions are asked but also in the way in which they are taken care of. For instance, LGBTQ
patients often face a lot of stigma and are also more susceptible, especially gay men, to
contracting sexually transmitted conditions such as HIV (Mayfield et al., 2017). Thus, when
caring for them it is important that the healthcare provider does not show any hint of being
judgmental and show an understanding of the risk that this group has for contracting various
sexually transmitted diseases.
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References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.a). Discussing Sexual Health with Your
Patients. Retrieved on 13 th June, 2020 from
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/clinicians/screening/discussing-sexual-health.html
Mayfield, J. J., Ball, E. M., Tillery, K. A., Crandall, C., Dexter, J., Winer, J. M., & Nañez, A.
I. (2017). Beyond men, women, or both: a comprehensive, LGBTQ-inclusive,
implicit-bias-aware, standardized-patient-based sexual history taking
curriculum. MedEdPORTAL: the journal of teaching and learning resources, 13.
Singh, R. V. (2018). The art of sexual history taking and barriers faced by residents. Annals
of Indian Psychiatry, 2(2), 160.
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