Response: Author reply

Excerpt

With great interest, we read the Reply to our study “Discussing sexuality in cancer care: towards personalized information for cancer patients and survivors” [1]. The authors are grateful to Eeltink for her reply in which she highlighted the importance of addressing not only patients’ needs but also their partners’ needs on sexuality; in her study, which investigated patients with haematological malignancies and their partners [2]. We agree the need for information of partners is of importance. It is well known that intimate partners of patients with cancer report a negative impact of cancer and its treatment on sexuality [3, 4]. The study of Eeltink shows that a year after the diagnosis, 52% of the partners reported a need for information regarding sexuality. This declined to 34% after 18 months. Younger age was associated with a higher need. The strength of the study is the longitudinal follow-up, the multicentre performance and the high initial response rate. The response rate during follow-up and baseline characteristic of the partners were not reported. …