Young Rheumatology Patients Not Counseled on Sexual Health

Brittany M. Huynh, MD, MPH, presented an abstract at ACR Convergence of her paper, Adolescent and Young Adult Rheumatology Patient Reports of Reproductive Health Screening and Counseling in the Clinical Setting.

In this paper, Huynh and her colleagues found that only 38% of pediatric rheumatologists were screening patients between 14-23 years of age for sexual activity. Only 17% of patients surveyed had conversations with their rheumy about pregnancy prevention.

Thankfully, this number was higher for the 36% of surveyed patients that were on teratogenic drugs — those that would harm a fetus. 54% of these patients were screened for sexual activity and 44% were counseled on avoiding pregnancy. However, only 62% of these patients knew their medications would harm a fetus.

We already know that there’s a general lack of these conversations happening across healthcare. Many healthcare providers don’t feel like they know enough about this topic to talk to their patients. Others may struggle with getting their pediatric patient alone to have these conversations without a parent or caregiver present.

As a sex educator, I also wonder how many of these conversations were affected by the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Many clinic systems and professional organizations have struggled with how to highlight the importance of this issue. That’s especially true in states banning similar conversations or punishing healthcare providers for having them.

For any rheumatology professionals looking into how to have these conversations, consider reaching out! I’m always happy to talk shop, consult, or work with your clinic on how to best serve this population.

Photo from The Gender Spectrum // VICE