Sexual function history taking in medicine

Sexual history taking is important for the proper diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction.It is often neglected in a clinical setting and it is also underre-ported by patients due to stigma and hesitation.Here we have described how we should take sexual function history taking during any sexual dysfunction.

Importance of communication in medical practice and medical education:An emphasis on empathy and attitudes and their possible influences

BACKGROUND Healthcare professionals need to be prepared to promote healthy lifestyles and care for patients.By focusing on what students should be able to perform one day as clinicians,we can bridge the gap between mere theoretical knowledge and its practical application.Gender aspects in clinical medicine also have to be considered when speaking of personalized medicine and learning curricula.AIM To determine sets of intellectual,personal,social,and emotional abilities that comprise core qualifications in medicine for performing well in anamnesis-taking,in order to identify training needs.METHODS An analysis of training clinicians’conceptions with respect to optimal medical history taking was performed.The chosen study design also aimed to assess gender effects.Structured interviews with supervising clinicians were carried out in a descriptive study at the Medical University of Vienna.Results were analyzed by conducting a qualitative computer-assisted content analysis of the interviews.Inductive category formation was applied.The main questions posed to the supervisors dealt with(1)Observed competencies of students in medical history taking;and(2)The supervisor’s own conceptions of"ideal medical history taking".RESULTS A total of 33 training clinicians(n=33),engaged in supervising medical students according to the MedUni Vienna’s curriculum standards,agreed to be enrolled in the study and met inclusion criteria.The qualitative content analysis revealed the following themes relevant to taking an anamnesis:(1)Knowledge;(2)Soft skills(relationship-building abilities,trust,and attitude);(3)Methodical skills(structuring,precision,and completeness of information gathering);and(4)Environmental/contextual factors(language barrier,time pressure,interruptions).Overall,health care professionals consider empathy and attitude as critical features concerning the quality of medical history taking.When looking at physicians’theoretical conceptions,more general practitioners and psychiatrists mentioned attitude and empathy in the context of"ideal medical history taking",with a higher percentage of females.With respect to observations of students’history taking,a positive impact from attitude and empathy was mainly described by male health care professionals,whereas no predominance of specialty was found.Representatives of general medicine and internal medicine,when observing medical students,more often emphasized a negative impact on history taking when students lacked attitude or showed non-empathetic behavior;no gender-specific difference was detected for this finding.CONCLUSION The analysis reveals that for clinicians engaged in medical student education,only a combination of skills,including adequate knowledge and methodical implementations,is supposed to guarantee acceptable performance.This study’s findings support the importance of concepts like relationship building,attitude,and empathy.However,there may be contextual factors in play as well,and transference of theoretical concepts into the clinical setting might prove challenging.

Ability of Therapists Trained in Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy to Guess Pain Catastrophizing and Kinesiophobia Scores for Patients with Low Back Pain

Objective: To investigate whether a physical therapist trained through the Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT) diploma program could guess psychological Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) scores of individuals with low back pain (LBP) by taking patient history and completing a physical evaluation. Methods: Ten participants with LBP completed PROMs immediately before history taking and again after a physical evaluation. PROMs included the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and Pain Coping Strategy Questionnaire. A physical therapist who completed the MDT diploma program took the patients’ history and completed their physical evaluation. The therapist completed the same PROMs immediately after both history taking and physical evaluation. Correlations between patient and therapist scores were calculated using Spearman’s ρ. Results: Statistically significant positive correlations were detected in the PCS (ρ = 0.65) and TSK (ρ = 0.78) before history taking, and in the PCS (ρ = 0.81) and TSK (ρ = 0.74) after physical evaluation. Discussion: The results are based on one MDT therapist and generalizability of the findings is limited. However, the current preliminary findings justify the need for further studies to explore effective post-graduate training to promote a patient centered approach.