engleski

Is taking a sexual history still a taboo: a cross sectional study

Introduction: Sexual functioning is of special importance in an assesment of the mental status. Psychiatrists, while exceptionally skilled in making general clinical assessments and in eliciting psychopathology during the psychiatric interview, appear not to be nearly as relaxed nor confident in their ability to respond to sexual complaints. Objectives: This cross-sectional study was designed to determine the prevalence of sexual data gathered by psychiatrists during their assessment of patients at hospital admission. Methods: We reviewed medical histories from 202 patients hospitalized in our acute inpatient unit over a period of 6 months. Our study variables were diagnosis, age, gender, martial status, and psychopharmacotherapy. Results: Our results revealed that assessment of sexual functioning was omitted in all medical history examinations. Only in one case of male patient, sexual side effects of neuroleptic medication were mentioned, but the patient was not questionned about them. Conclusions: As sexual history taking was omitted in all 202 patients, establishing links with the variables represented in this study was impossible. Our results lead us to theorize that in addition to being often overlooked in clinical assesments, sexual complaints may be considered of secondary importance in the acutely ill population. To expand the scale of this research it will be necessary to determine the prevalence of sexual data gathering in outpatient and day care units, as well as survey psychiatrists to capture the interpersonal dimension of taking a sexual history.

sexual history ; acute inpatient unit ; psychiatry ; sexual medicine

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