Abstract

RAMALHEIRO, Lúcia; GODINHO, Catarina  and  MAIA, Ana Catarina. Women’s attitudes to attention to sexuality in primary care consultations. Rev Port Clin Geral [online]. 2011, vol.27, n.6, pp.548-552. ISSN 0870-7103.

Objective: To identify women’s attitudes to attention to sexuality in women’s health consultations in the Castelo Family Health Unit (USF do Castelo), in order to develop strategies to promote attention to this issue. Study type: Cross-sectional study. Setting: USF do Castelo - ACES Seixal e Sesimbra Population: Women over 18 years of age, attending woman’s health consultations in USF do Castelo Methods: Anonymous questionnaires were distributed to women attending woman’s health consultations between March 15th and May 15th, 2010. Data entry and analysis were performed using Microsoft® Office Excel 2007. Results: Completed questionnaires were received from 161 women. In 5%, women referred to sexual problems. In the sample, 76% consider it important to address sexuality in the medical consultation, but only 19.2% discuss this frequently. Barriers identified include embarrassment (42.3%), fear that the doctor finds the theme unimportant (12.4%) and lack of time in the consultation (10.3%). Conclusions: Given the barriers identified by patients of USF do Castelo to the discussion of sexuality in the consultation, we suggest that doctors should demonstrate confidence and willingness to discuss sexuality with their patients.

Keywords : Sexuality; Primary Health Care; Female.

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