Training rehabilitation teams in sexual health care: A description and evaluation of a multidisciplinary intervention

Sexual health problems are more prevalent among people with a chronic illness or physical disability than among the general population. Although sexual health care in the rehabilitation setting in the Netherlands is a growing field of interest, integrating sexual health in the overall care for rehabilitation patients has proven to be a challenge.

This article describes a training designed for rehabilitation professionals working in operational multidisciplinary teams. The main objective of this training is to help create a professional environment in which sexual health problems can be discussed, if possible prevented and when needed treated. A pretest-posttest design was used to measure the impact of this educational program given to six teams in the Netherlands.

The results demonstrated that the staff's knowledge, comfort levels and approach levels significantly increased. Team members were more active concerning sexual health and patient care.

These findings clearly indicate that rehabilitation workers can benefit from a custom fit design team training on sexual health care. Strategically working with the modus operandi of a multidisciplinary team, such as task definition, determining pro- and reactive roles and formal agreements, appears to be of importance in integrating sexual health in the overall care for patients. Implications for Rehabilitation Sexuality and intimacy are important aspects of quality of life and difficult to integrate in rehabilitation treatment. A multidisciplinary Team Training Sexual Health Care (TTSHC) has been developed with core themes: talking about sex, using a biopsychosocial approach, identifying and understanding sexual health issues, applying the existing expertise of the MDT for sexual health care. After the TTSHC all the participants of the MDTs show significantly more active behavior concerning sexual health and patient care. Defining roles and responsibilities in the MDT is important for integrating sexual health care in rehabilitation treatment.