Article

Patients with cardiovascular disease and their partners frequently have concerns
about sexual intimacy, and sexual counseling is needed across health care
settings to ensure that patients receive information to safely resume sexual
activity. The purpose of this review is to provide practical, evidence-based
approaches to enable health care providers to discuss sexual counseling,
illustrated by several case scenarios. Evidence shows that patients expect health
care providers to initiate sexual activity discussions, although providers may be
hesitant and often rely on patients to ask questions. Although some providers
cite lack of knowledge or confidence in their ability to provide sexual
counseling, others mention time pressures in the clinical setting. Although such
barriers exist, sexual counseling can be individualized to the cardiac condition
of a patient with a few select questions. The representative examples of patients
with angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass surgery,
heart failure, and implantable cardioverter defibrillator are used to illustrate
key points and provide a model for sexual counseling in practice.

Langue : ANGLAIS