Poster Presentation
Water's Edge Ballroom (Hilton Waikoloa Village)
Thursday, July 14, 2005
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Water's Edge Ballroom (Hilton Waikoloa Village)
Thursday, July 14, 2005
3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
The Expressions of Psychiatric Patients' Sexual Concerns and Expectations in Taiwan
Su-Ching Sung, RN, MSN1, Chi-Mei Hong, BSN2, Pei-Pei Chao, BSN2, and Yen-Chin Lin, PhD3. (1) School of Nursing, Chang Gung Institute of Technology, Tao-yuan Hsien, Taiwan, (2) Department of nurisng, Bali Mental Hospital, Bali Taipei County, Taiwan, (3) College of social science-Graduate school of HUman Sexology, Shu-Te University, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan
| Learning Objective #1: Understand the importance of communications with psychiatric patients about sexuality |
| Learning Objective #2: Understand the psycho-sexual matters in nursing practice |
PURPOSE: This study was to identify the sexual concerns and expectations among psychiatric patients in Taiwan. METHODS: The samples of 115 psychiatric patients were purposely selected from Bali Mental Hospital in Taiwan with one-to-one instruction. A semi-structured interview, consisting of five open-ended questions used towards discovering patients' concerns and expectations regarding sexual expression, was designed specifically for the study. A systematic method of data handing was conducted and content analysis was used for the corresponding responses. FINDINGS: More female patients reported the awareness of a decline in sexual interest or activity than male patients. The reasons of the decreased or stopped sexual relations were given to illness, losing interest, lack of opportunity, and no privacy in hospital. From content analysis, three themes of the sexual concerns, expectation of sexual relationship, and the awareness of discussing sexual/relationship concerns were extrapolated. For the sexual concerns, most are desires to have intimacy with others, impotence, genetic problems, and sexual taboos. For expectations of sexual relationships, a majority would like more opportunities to meet people and develop intimacy relationships and social skills. However, the most expressed barriers to expectation were the financial limitation and marital viewpoint. For the awareness of discussing sexual/relationship concerns, over 50% of patients felt guilty and shamed to discuss them, but were also desired to have opportunities sharing their concerns with professionals in the future. Also, ten patients admitted to having clandestine meetings with sexual partners outside the hospitals because they felt staffs had the right to stop their sexual relations. CONCLUSIONS: All respondents seemed hopeful about the opportunities to form intimate and fulfilling relationships in the future. Psychiatric patients will be willing to discuss sexual issues and relationship matters if nursing professionals can facilitate communications about sexuality, provide sexual education, and encourage exploration of patients' feelings and resources.