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Sexual
Health

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Sexual health is a basic human right that can often be disrupted after a spinal cord injury (SCI), stroke or acquired brain injury (ABI). Many people with these diagnoses have questions about their sexuality that are often not addressed in rehabilitation. In 2017-2018 a team of clinicians, researchers and persons with lived experience of SCI identified this as a gap in care and developed a new sexual health practice for SCI rehabilitation at Parkwood Institute.  Since that time, similar gaps were identified across the Stroke and ABI Rehabilitation programs at Parkwood Institute and as such Sexual Health Practices are being developed in those programs using similar methods of implementation.

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Overall Goal:  To embed sexual health education and support for patients with SCI, stroke and ABI into clinical practice by increasing clinicians’ knowledge and confidence.

 

Specific goals:

  •  All patients will be given permission to talk about their sexual health concerns and given the opportunity to identify sexual health goals throughout their rehabilitation stay.

  •  To increase self-efficacy of rehabilitation clinicians to be comfortable giving patients permission to talk about their sexual health concerns and feel confident providing limited education on the subject matter.

  • Develop processes to embed sexual health into practice across all disciplines within the rehabilitation programs.

 

What this means…

For Patients and Families: Improved access to Sexual Health services and resources throughout the continuum of care.

For Clinicians: Improved levels of self-efficacy in addressing sexual health concerns of patients

For Administrators: Access to better data to make decisions about resources and priorities!

For Researchers: Supporting implementation of best practices in spinal cord injury, stroke and acquired brain injury

For our Organization: Leading the field in Sexual Health and Rehabilitation

 

Sponsors: Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation through SCI IEQCC, Canadian Association of Neuroscience Nursing, Professional Practice Bursary, Parkwood Institute (Regional Rehab)

 

Collaborations: Western University

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