Evaluation of Co-Designed Psychoeducation Practices and Guidelines for Addressing Sexuality After Traumatic Brain Injury

Basic psychoeducation on post-TBI sexuality rarely occurs in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) rehabilitation healthcare settings. Psychoeducation practices and guidelines will be produced through a series of co-design focus group sessions with rehabilitation health professionals who work with individuals with TBI at the Epworth Healthcare Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Rehabilitation Unit. These focus group sessions and the co-designed outcomes are expected to create a system-level change at the unit. From which point, all patients admitted at the unit will receive basic psychoeducation on post-TBI sexuality as part of routine care. Clinician participants of the co-design focus group study attended two separate two-hour sessions. The commencement of the focus group sessions marked the commencement of the co-design and implementation process within the rehabilitation unit. Patient-related intervention deliverables that were produced by the end of the project included a patient brochure and changes in routine clinical practice in at least one member of the rehabilitation team will attempt to broach the topic of sexuality before discharge with every patient. Broaching the topic would include asking permission from the patient to speak about sexuality and handing them to brochure, and may include types of sexuality-related changes that can happen, what patients may experience sexually after returning home, and who to approach if there were issues. To monitor adherence to the intervention, patients are asked to complete a study-specific questionnaire requiring them to reflect on whether they were provided any sexuality support either verbally, in print, or in written format.