This invention aims to predict men’s adaptation to prostate cancer treatment, guiding clinical decisions to prevent and manage mental and sexual health issues linked to treatment effects. Using innovative models based on psychological traits and sexual functioning, it assists both medical and mental health professionals in prostate cancer recovery.
This algorithm will help in predicting men’s adjustment to prostate cancer treatment, and hence guide clinical decisions on how to best prevent and manage mental and sexual health conditions associated with the detrimental effects of such treatments (e.g., radical prostatectomy, hormonal therapy).
The escalation of prostate cancer (PCa) at the European and Regional level (PCa ranks as the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in men) poses major challenges to the clinical management of this disease.
Among the most common treatments is radical prostatectomy, a highly invasive clinical procedure. Ultimately, radical prostatectomy ensures men’s survival. However, radical prostatectomy is related to detrimental effects on men’s mental and sexual health conditions, including the development of anxiety and depressive clinical conditions, sexual dysfunction, and the impairment of couple’s dynamics, thus having a detrimental effect on men’s quality of life. Such detrimental effects can prevent the compliance with medical procedures, thus putting men at risk of increased morbidity and death.
Given such a scenario, finding the risk and protective factors of mental and sexual health conditions during prostate cancer treatment is mandatory. Acknowledging such factors will help clinicians anticipate individuals at risk of developing detrimental clinical conditions and guide clinical decisions on how to best approach such cases, preventing treatment discontinuation and promoting sexual and mental health, as well as quality of life.
First algorithm aimed at helping clinicians to predict prostate cancer patients’ adjustment to treatment, with a focus on mental and sexual health adjustment;
Allows medical doctors and other clinicians to refine their decisions regarding treatment options and request for additional support interventions, namely, psychological interventions, when poor mental and sexual health outcomes are anticipated;
By guiding PCa patients toward additional support when needed, it may help reduce attrition to medical treatments.
The Prostate cancer (PCa) psychological adaptation algorithm can be used in clinical settings such as public and private hospitals or clinical offices (private practice) receiving PCa men.
