Project 460767

Each year in Canada approximately 13,000 new people are diagnosed with gynecologic cancer. The science has greatly advanced such that more patients are surviving these gynecologic cancers. However, this also means that many more are living with side-effects of their cancer treatment for many years, and these side-effects can greatly impact survivors' quality of life. Sexual difficulties such as loss of sexual desire, problems reaching orgasm, and painful sex have been reported in approximately half of gynecologic cancer survivors and most of these individuals will have lasting symptoms that impact their well-being and relationships. As far as scientifically supported treatments that do not administer medications, there is good science showing that psychological and mindfulness-based treatments, delivered both face to face and online, work to improve sexual health in women with sexual problems. The challenge in these treatments, however, is that many people cannot access these in-person services due to where they live. The goal of this convening project is to bring together a group of gynecologic cancer survivors to help improve an existing online sexual health program, which is effective for non-cancer survivors with sexual dysfunction, and ensure that it meets the needs of gynecologic cancer survivors, as well as includes information that would be useful to the sexual health of survivors. In this year-long convening project, we plan to first recruit and work with a patient advisory group of gynecologic cancer survivors as well as a small group of gynecologic cancer doctors, to identify content to be added to eSense to adapt it to the needs of gynecologic cancer survivors. The next several months will involve working with our graphic illustrator and web developer to incorporate these edits and create eSense-Cancer. The final two months of the project will re-engage with the patient advisory committee to provide final feedback on eSense-Cancer prior to testing it.