Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Cancer
Date Submitted: May 11, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: May 11, 2020 - Jun 2, 2020
Date Accepted: Oct 11, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
A tablet-based, Engagement, Assessment, Support and Sign-posting (EASSi) tool used to facilitate and structure sexual wellbeing conversations in routine prostate cancer care: Mixed-methods evaluation
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Long-term side-effects associated with different prostate cancer treatment approaches are common. Sexual challenges are the most frequently occurring of these and can result in increased psychological morbidity. It is recognised that barriers to communication can make initiating discussions around sexual concerns in routine practice difficult. Healthcare professionals need to routinely initiate conversations, effectively engage with patients and assess needs in order to provide essential support. One proposed method which could support healthcare professionals to do this is use of prompts or structured frameworks to guide conversations.
Objective:
Objective:
To assess feasibility, acceptability and satisfaction with a tablet-based, Engagement, Assessment, Support and Sign-posting (EASSi) tool designed to facilitate and structure sexual wellbeing discussions in routine prostate cancer care.
Methods:
Methods:
Healthcare professionals (n=8) used the EASSi tool during 89 post-treatment appointments. Quantitative data were recorded based on programme usage and surveys completed by healthcare professionals and patients. Qualitative data exploring perceptions on use of the tool were gathered using semi-structured interviews with all healthcare professionals (n=8) and a sample of patients (n=10).
Results:
Results:
Surveys were completed by healthcare professionals immediately following each appointment (n=89: 100%). Postal surveys were returned by 59 patients (66%). Healthcare professionals and patients reported that the tool helped facilitate discussions (91.1% and 82.4% respectively) and that information provided was relevant (92.1% and 84.6% respectively). Mean conversation duration was 6.01 minutes (SD: 2.91). Qualitative synthesis identified the tool’s ability to initiate and structure discussions, improve ‘depth’ of conversations, and normalise sexual concerns.
Conclusions:
Conclusion: The EASSi tool was appropriate and acceptable for use in practice and provided a flexible approach to facilitate routine, brief conversations and deliver essential sexual wellbeing support. Further work will be conducted evaluating the effectiveness of using the tablet-based tool in prostate cancer care settings. Clinical Trial: n/a
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.