Overview
This two year study (2007-2009), funded by Cancer Research UK, examined the role that primary care might take in the follow-up of prostate cancer after treatment. The qualitative work with patients and health professionals in primary and secondary care helped identify men’s unmet needs, under the existing system of follow-up after treatment in primary and secondary care settings.
Methods
I conducted the following qualitative data collection:
- Semi-structured interviews with Consultant Urologists and Oncologists and Nurse Specialists in secondary care
- Interviews with GPs and Practice Nurses
- Depth interviews with men who had been treated for prostate cancer
- Over half of the interviews with men included their partners.
Main findings
The four main findings reported were: 1) Psychosexual problems gained importance over time, once the imminent threat to survival had passed, (2) men felt they were rarely invited to discuss psychosexual side effects within follow-up appointments and lack of rapport with health care professionals made it difficult to raise problems themselves, (3) problems were sometimes concealed or accepted and professionals’ attempts to explore potential difficulties were resisted by some, and (4) older patients were too embarrassed to raise psychosexual concerns as they felt they would be considered ‘too old’ to be worried about the loss of sexual function.
Outcomes
Primary care teams were advised to assess psychosexual problems long after treatment ceases, no matter how ‘good’ the clinical outcome was assessed to be. A psychosexual intervention was developed, in light of this work, and introduced into practice in primary care.
The overall programme of research was led by Dr Peter Rose, University of Oxford and Professor Eila Watson, Oxford Brookes University and involved a wider team from Edinburgh and Cardiff.
Dr Rosaleen O'Brien 