Perspectives on sexual history taking in routine primary care consultations in North West, South Africa: Disconnect between patients and doctors

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Perspectives on sexual history taking in routine primary care consultations in North West, South Africa: Disconnect between patients and doctors
 
Creator Pretorius, Deidré Mlambo, Motlatso G. Couper, Ian D.
 
Subject Family Medicine; Rural health; primary care; sexual health barriers; sexual history taking; receptiveness; patient–doctor engagement; communication; patient-centredness; sexual dysfunction
Description Background: Sexual history is rarely taken in routine consultations and research reported on common barriers that doctors experience, such as gender, age and cultural differences. This article focuses on how patients and doctors view sexual history taking during a consultation and their perspectives on barriers to and facilitators of sexual history taking.Aim: This study aimed to explore doctors’ and patients’ perspectives on sexual history taking during routine primary care consultations with patients at risk of sexual dysfunction.Setting: The research was conducted in primary care facilities in the Dr Kenneth Kaunda Health District, North West province.Methods: This was part of grounded theory research, involving 151 adult patients living with hypertension and diabetes and 21 doctors they consulted. Following recording of routine consultations, open-ended questions on the demographic questionnaire and brief interactions with patients and doctors were documented and analysed using open inductive coding. The code matrix and relations browsers in MaxQDA software were used.Results: There was a disconnect between patients and doctors regarding their expectations on initiating the discussion on sexual challenges and relational and clinical priorities in the consultation. Patients wanted a doctor who listens. Doctors wanted patients to tell them about sexual dysfunction. Other minor barriers included gender, age and cultural differences and time constraints.Conclusion: A disconnect between patients and doctors caused by the doctors’ perceived clinical priorities and screening expectations inhibited sexual history taking in a routine consultation in primary care.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor NONE
Date 2022-06-09
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — qualitative grounded theory
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v14i1.3286
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 14, No 1 (2022); 10 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3286/5403 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3286/5404 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3286/5405 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/3286/5406
 
Coverage North West Province 2018 -2019 adults living with diabetes and hypertension consulting doctors
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Deidre Pretorius, Motlatso G. Mlambo, Ian D. Couper https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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