Patients' Experiences of Sexual Discomfort in South Korean Healthcare Setting: A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Study

Body exposure and physical touch are common components of healthcare procedures. Although they can be essential for ensuring proper care, these practices often evoke negative emotions such as shame, embarrassment, and humiliation among patients. These experiences can further lead to psychological harm, including trauma, preventing patients from seeking follow-up care. Given that these negative encounters vary by the sociocultural and clinical contexts, this study explored patients' experiences of such "sexual discomfort" in the South Korean healthcare setting.

Eighteen participants who reported experiencing sexual discomfort during healthcare encounters were enrolled. In-depth interviews were conducted with each participant. All the interviews were audiorecorded, transcribed, and analyzed using van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenological approach.

Five themes emerged, reflecting the universal themes of human existentials suggested by van Manen: suffering from nakedness and modesty violations (vulnerable bodies); navigating uncertainty and trauma (confusing times); being powerless and subordinate (power imbalance); challenging the addressing of my discomfort (isolating spaces); and ensuring control, boundaries, and respect (preserving myself). Hermeneutic phenomenological writing on patients' experiences of sexual discomfort was provided based on these five themes to comprehensively reinterpret the phenomena.

The healthcare setting in South Korea, which prioritizes efficiency, often leads to unnecessary sexual shame and discomfort for patients. This can be exacerbated by the perceived power inequalities within the provider-patient relationship, intensifying feelings of vulnerability. Nurses' essential roles in mitigating these negative encounters are frequently overlooked under the guise of maintaining efficiency. The findings of this study offer several implications, emphasizing the need for changes to provider education to enhance patient-centered care.