A Bio-psychosocial Sexual Health Intervention for Prostate Cancer Survivors and Partners: a Feasibility Study

Previous Research: The prevalence of sexual dysfunction (SD) after prostate cancer surgery, coupled with the severity of impact and lack of successful intervention, make SD one of the most substantial health-related quality of life burdens in all of cancer survivorship. In 2012, 21,000 men will be added to the pool of Canadian prostate cancer (PC) survivors. Approximately 70% of men will suffer SD post-surgery and 60% will experience significant distress in response to SD. Similarly, partners may experience even greater distress than patients. Research examining the nature of the distress reveals that the significance of SD extends beyond the ability to have an erection, and includes guilt, depression, anxiety, anger, and reductions in intimacy. Unfortunately, there are no reported interventions that have been successful in reducing the impact of SD on long term couple health-related quality of life. Project Description: Men and their partners need an effective intervention to help them adapt to sexual dysfunction following prostate cancer surgery. In addressing this need we propose an innovative biomedical-psychosocial Intervention that emphasizes: 1) multidisciplinary intervention teams; 2) the active participation of the partner; and 3) a broad-spectrum medical, psychological, and social approach. The treatment goal of the intervention is to promote intimacy and optimal sexual health in affected couples. This is a preliminary study designed to determine the feasibility of running a large scale randomized controlled trial comparing the new biomedical-psychosocial intervention to an attention control condition. Impact and Relevance: The burden of sexual dysfunction after prostate cancer surgery is responsible for the single greatest impact on patient/partner health-related quality of life; substantially more so than concern for cancer recurrence, or any other post-surgery side-effect. Consequently, there is a great need for progressive and distributable sexual health rehabilitation interventions designed to uphold intimacy and optimal sexual health. If the biomedical-psychosocial intervention is ultimately found beneficial, it will result in: 1) an empirically-based intervention that helps patients/partners maintain optimal health-related quality of life after prostate cancer surgery, and 2) a highly structured protocol and manualized intervention that is translatable to other treatment groups (e.g. radiation therapy) and University/Community-based hospitals.