Anecdotal evidence from clinical practice, classroom learning and research studies suggests most aspects of sexual health and wellbeing are addressed inadequately or not at all. Some nurses may feel ill-equipped or underprepared to explore private or intimate aspects of a patient's sexual health or relationships, or may be too embarrassed to talk to the individual about the personal side effects of medical conditions or treatment regimens. This article identifies strategies to assist healthcare professionals in addressing patients' sexual health needs as part of holistic care.

Myths and fears are intimately associated with issues of sex, sexuality and sexual health. Many myths and fears, present in both the education and clinical settings, prevent health carers from maximizing the potential for wholeness and wellness, for both themselves and their clients. In order for nurses, midwives and health visitors to take their role in therapeutic communication around the sex issues seriously, these myths must be dispelled and the fears overcome. Many of the hindrances to communication are shrouded in other people's taboos and morals, and hidden within the languages of clinical terminology and silence. This leads numerous clinicians and educators to an incommensurate fear of dealing with the sexual issues of life. This article argues that this is an example of institutionalized erotophobia (fear of sex), which results in a barrier to genuine, therapeutic, communication. For the sake of brevity, ‘sex’ will refer to sex, sexuality and sexual health. Likewise, unless a clear distinction is being made, ‘nurse’ will include midwives and health visitors.

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Purpose: The study aim was to determine whether self-reported temperament traits differentiate adults who stutter (AWS) from adults who do not stutter (AWNS). Additionally, associations between temperament and stuttering frequency, and between temperament and quality of life impacts of stuttering, were investigated in AWS.Method: Self-reported temperament traits were documented for 33 AWS and 43 AWNS using the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (ATQ;Evans & Rothbart, 2007). Quality-of-life impacts of stuttering were assessed using the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience with Stuttering (Yaruss & Quesal, 2010). Stuttering frequency was calculated from 100-word monologue and reading samples.Results: A between-groups difference in scores on the ATQ Positive Affect subscale was nominally significant (i.e., before correcting for multiple tests) and also approached statistical significance after Bonferroni correction. Positive Affect scores were lower for AWS, and the size of this trending effect was moderate. Within AWS, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between impact scores on the General Information section of the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience with Stuttering and ATQ Frustration subscale scores after Bonferroni correction. No associations were detected between temperament traits and stuttering frequency.Conclusions: Results reveal a nontrivial tendency for AWS to experience decreased positive affect compared to AWNS. In addition, increased frustration was found to be associated with reduced general knowledge about stuttering in AWS. Neither effect has been previously reported for adults or children who stutter. Finally, self-reported temperament traits were not found to vary with stuttering frequency in adults, consistent with previous results for AWS.

In pharmacoepidemiology studies, the nature of the research question will dictate the choice of methodological approach and the conditions for optimizing the level of evidence. Thus, to document the treated population and the modes of use of a new drug in real-life prescribing conditions, a descriptive approach through cross-sectional or longitudinal studies conducted on databases, or else ad-hoc studies, will be preferred. On the other hand, evaluation of the real-life "effectiveness" of a new drug will be based on cohort, case-control or scientific modeling, depending on the drug and the disease of interest. For questions involving drug risks and safety, it is the adverse effects profile that will guide the choice of study design, both for identification of the effect (signal) and assessment of causation. In all cases, in the post-marketing authorization (MA) setting, the evidence acquired in pre-MA studies serves as the basis for generating hypotheses. Whatever the research question and the method chosen to address it, the potential biases and their impact on the results need to be identified. In certain cases, a combination of several complementary approaches may prove preferable to a single study.