(PNM-16) Oncosexuality - why do we ignore the sexuality of these patients?

Abstract The sexuality of oncology and palliative care patients is systematically ignored by health professionals, although there is a wealth of evidence and recommendations about the impact of this topic on patients’ quality of life and the need for patients and their partners to address this issue during treatment. This narrative review provides a synthesis of several studies of the last four decades about the negligence in addressing the sexuality of these patients. The searches were carried out in Scielo and PubMed databases. Studies that addressed the issue of sexuality in oncology and palliative care patients were included, regardless of the year of publication, language or type of study. Studies that addressed the issues individually and that did not fit the objective of the study were excluded. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the silence about sexuality of survivors, oncology and palliative care patients. The cancer and the oncology treatment itself cause multiple systemic and localized side effects, which directly affect patients sexual function and their intimate relations. As the number of long-term care patients and survivors continues to increase, there are millions of people who survived a life-threatening illness but are unable to enjoy some aspects of this “new life” simply because of a lack of guidance. Among the reasons to not discuss the treatment effects in sexuality are lack of time, fear of disrespecting the patient, inexperiency in addressing the topic and the social construction of the imaginary of sexuality within the heteronormative vision with a strict focus on penetration and the sick person as an asexual individual. The majority of studies on oncosexuality are assertive in concluding that patients are not adequately informed about how to overcome the side effects of treatments and even less about the impacts generated on their sexual life. Financing No conflict.