Psychosexual care in prostate cancer survivorship: a systematic review

BACKGROUND Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common cancer in men. Due to improvements in medical care, the number of PC survivors is increasing. Current literature demonstrates survivors have significant unmet needs including psychosexual care. We assess patients psychosexual needs by systematic review of literature over the past 20 years up to May 2015 in order to see what issues need to be addressed within psychosexual care. METHODS A systematic review was conducted on PC survivorship and psychosexual care. The search strategy aimed to identify all references related to PC survivorship programme components (parts of survivorship programmes) AND survivorship AND psychosexual concerns. Search terms used were as follows: (PC OR prostate neoplasms) AND (survivorship OR survivor*) OR [psychosexual impairment or sexual dysfunction or erectile dysfunction (ED)] AND [comorbidity or quality of life (QoL)]. RESULTS The systematic review identified 17 papers, examining unmet needs in psychosexual care post PC therapy. CONCLUSIONS These findings of this review may change psychosexual care of PC survivors, as national and international guidance is needed.