Living with a Prostate Cancer Patient: Real-world Evidence from the Europa Uomo Prostate Cancer Partners in Europe...

Partners of prostate cancer (PCa) patients may play an important role in the care process. Therefore, Europa Uomo initiated the Europa Uomo Prostate cancer Partners in Europe Research (EU-ProPER) study to study the partner's perspective. The study aims to assess the quality of life of partners of PCa patients, and the impact of a PCa diagnosis and its subsequent treatment on the partner.

Based on information of the PCa-partner program of the annual Dutch PCa Foundation meetings and expert input, a partner survey was developed. The survey includes themes on communication, relationship, social functioning, and general health (12-item Short Form Health Survey v2) of the partner, and the impact of urinary incontinence (UI) and sexual dysfunction (SD). The EU-ProPER survey was pretested in 16 partners and was available online in 17 languages.

Between October 9 and Dec 31, 2023, 1135 partners completed the survey. The median age at completion was 68 yr (interquartile range [IQR] 62-73); it was 61 yr (IQR 55-67) at the time of diagnosis. Of the partners, 89% can openly talk about PCa to their partner and 73% feels that communication has not gotten worsen since the PCa diagnosis. Communication about UI and SD is more private. Regarding communication with health care professionals, PCa patients and partners are more often informed about UI (66%) than about intimacy/SD (20-24%). Most partners feel, however, that information about sexuality should be provided upfront to both the PCa patient and the partner (87%).

Europa Uomo has engaged an unprecedented number of partners of PCa patients. Communication is an important topic in which intimate topics such as UI and SD are more private. Communication with health care professionals about intimacy/sexuality is currently suboptimal and needs to be improved.