Sex Education Groups in a Psychiatric Day Hospital: Clinical Observations

Abstract

Although the prevalence of sexual dysfunction is high among individuals diagnosed with severe and chronic mental illness, the topic of sexuality is often not part of standard psychiatric assessment. Discussions about sexuality could improve patients' quality of life. This article outlines the development and implementation of a sex education group for patients admitted to a psychiatric day hospital in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, along with clinical observations. The series was well received by patients who felt that attending the group helped normalize their sexual concerns by providing a safe place in which to learn and to talk about sexuality.

Moving Medical Education and Sexuality Education Forward

“…A look across discipline successes may not only help advance sexual health training in medical education, but may also help shift to a lens valuing a continuum of sexual health care for patients versus fragmentation or no sexual health care at all. Examples of successes in Psychiatry include understanding the extent of sexuality training for residents [35], understanding residents' perspectives on the content and delivery of sexual health training [36], identifying and prioritizing sexual health curricular content [37], and even the implementation of sex education groups as a treatment modality for patients admitted to a psychiatric day hospital [38]. Like Psychiatry, General Practitioners [39], Family Practice Residents [40], residents across disciplines [41], and Obstetrics and Gynecology practitioners [42,43] have also gained insight to their disciplines' training and practices in assessing sexual health with patients.…”

Evaluating family knowledge about sexual health in patients with severe mental illness: a qualitative study in Iran

“…The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) believe that sex education is an inalienable right for all human beings [14]. Sex education has sometimes been neglected in patients with severe mental illness (SMI) [4,28,30,33,34,40].…”

Neglected sexual needs: A qualitative study in Iranian patients with severe mental illness

“…In addition to their psychiatric symptoms, concurrent alcohol and substance abuse may be associated with high‐risk sexual behaviors . Therefore, necessity of sex education in chronic mental illness patients has been addressed in some researches …”