Sexual History Taking Competency: A Survey among the Clinicians in Bangladesh

Abstract

Introduction: Sexuality is a hidden topic and not talked much in countries like Bangladesh with strong cultural & religious myths and having health seeking behavior of availing traditional healers and lack of specialized service center. Objective: It was aimed to see how often the clinicians ask about sexual issues in their clinical practice; the level of comfortability in inquiring about sex related problems and the opinion regarding sexual health services. Methods: A descriptive, observational, cross sectional analysis was carried out on willing clinicians who attended seminars on sexual dysfunction in Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. The data were collected by predesigned selfreporting questionnaire from clinicians attending in 3 different occasions at the same venue from 560 respondents as 125 in first round, 166 in second round and 269 in the third round. Nonprobability purposive consecutive sampling technique was chosen and data were analyzed by Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) 16.0 and Microsoft Excel 2007 version software. Results: At first round 53.6% were comfortable and 35% were uncomfortable asking sexual history with 26% facing discomfort asking, 12% uncomfortable with extreme age, and 12% with fear of offending the patients. In second round 42% clinicians were uncomfortable asking sexual history. In 3rd round survey, 37% of the respondents were uncomfortable to ask sexual history. Majority of the respondents (95%) agreed specialized set up should be established for patients with sexual dysfunction. Conclusion: Its first ever survey on clinicians of different discipline who are interested to deal with patients with sexual dysfunction with outcome recommendation of specialized set up for patients with sexual dysfunction.