Sexual health and sexuality related issues is always

Sexual health and sexuality related issues is always challenging task for many adolescent
and young adults to discuss with their healthcare provider. For healthcare team, this issue is
mostly because of lack of education about the sexuality and reproductive health that the teenager
and young adults. The healthcare teams need to make strategies to manage these
issues (Frederick, Revette, Michaud, & Bober, 2019) . To improve their patient quality of life and
outcomes is always the basic goal for the healthcare team of oncology, so that their patients are
able to discuss issue related to their sexual health (Leonardi-Warren et al., 2016)
Everyone is responsible to fulfill patients need in healthcare setting but nurses are more
responsible to respond to the need which patient is complaining and do their best to fulfill that
needs. Sometimes the patients are silent to discuss their concerns related to sexual health and
they do not ask for any kind of help. These needs are real in nature and supported through
various evidence, nurses are consider breaking their silence by discussing sexual health issue
with patients directly. Patients reserve the rights to expect more from the nurses(McLeod &
Hamilton, 2013).
One of the study finding indicates that the most common and acceptable barrier for
sexuality teaching is the nurse’s knowledge level. They have queries that patient will not respond
to nurses when they teach sexuality(M. A. Magnan & Reynolds, 2006). Greek nurses identified
the essence of sexual assessment, but they consider it out of their range and practice. As the
sexual assessment is the most integral part of oncology patient, it should have to added in the
courses in nursing curriculum to aware the novice about the importance(Nakopoulou,
Papaharitou, & Hatzichristou, 2009).
Facilitator for the patients are the oncology team who are the directly in touch with the
clients. This is the responsibility of the team to facilitate their patients who are young adults to
overcome the problem. The patient who have less knowledge of the treatment and its impact on

NURSES’ PERCEPTIONS AND BARRIERS IN ADDRESSING THE SEXUAL HEALTH
NEEDS OF ONCOLOGY PATIENTS
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his/her sexual health should be educated about the treatment and the respond of treatment to their
sexual health(Evan, Kaufman, Cook, & Zeltzer, 2006).
Barriers that incorporate the sexuality assessment of the patients include sociocultural
norms of individuals and time availability with nurses, therefore more emphasis on sexual
pattern on the nursing curriculum (Magnan, Reynolds & Galvin, 2005) and (Oskey, Can, &
Basgol, 2014) . While in China the major barriers face by the nurses to address the sexuality
issues are the preoccupied mind and myths of the individuals regarding the sexuality pattern,
furthermore the nurses believe that discussing this sensitive with the patient (Zeng, Liu & Loke,
2012).