GENERAL PRACTITIONERS’ PRACTICE PATTERNS: DIAGNOSING AND TREATING SEXUAL PROBLEMS

To achieve good general health, the status of good sexual health is needed. Nonetheless, sexual problems are common and concern all people regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. Often a general practitioner (GP) is the first healthcare contact for patients. However, as concerns and problems of sexuality are often highly intimate, they can be hard to bring up by patients themselves. Therefore, healthcare providers should actively initiate the topic. Hence, it is crucial that GPs are familiar with and fluent on how to bring up, diagnose, and treat concerns of sexuality.

A web-based questionnaire assessing practice patterns in diagnosing and treating sexual problems was utilized with a random sample of 1000 GPs in Finland. The gender, age, and weekly number of patients dealt with sexual issues were also assessed. The study covered three fields: 1) attitudes toward sexual problems, 2) frequency of inquiring of various sexual problems, and 3) practice patterns in the treatment of sexual problems.

Altogether 402 (43.5%) GPs (age range of 27–65 years, 75% female and 25% male) responded. The female GPs were more likely to consider that diagnosing male sexual problems was difficult, but no difference according to gender emerged in diagnosing female sexual problems. The female GPs were also less likely to prescribe medications for sexual problems, and to find the treatments they had prescribed as effective. The male GPs more likely frequently inquired about erectile dysfunction and increased libido, whereas the female GPs inquired about dyspareunia. The older GPs more frequently inquired of various sexual problems compared to the younger GPs. The more patients the GPs dealt with sexual issues, the more frequent they were inquiring of and treating various sexual problems: ordering further exams, prescribing drug or non-drug therapy, and considering treatments to be effective.

GPs’ self-reported practice patterns in managing patients’ sexual problems are disorganized leading to under-diagnosing and under-treating the issue. National clinical practice guidelines are needed. In addition, sexual medicine education should be increased.

All authors have no conflicts of interest pertaining to this abstract.