Sexual counseling based on the plissit model after breast cancer surgery: A meta-analysis study

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of PLISSIT model-based sexual education programs on the sexual lives of women with breast cancer. The meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with the Cochrane Handbook and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Metaanalysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Ten electronic databases (Pub med, Complementary Index, MEDLINE, Academic Search Ultimate, CINAHL Complete, OpenAIRE, Directory of Open Access Journals, Supplemental Index, Science Direct) were searched to identify studies published until October 2023. After screening, six studies were included in the analysis. The included articles were reviewed by two independent reviewers who assessed the methodological quality of the studies using the Cochrane risk of bias tool (RoB 2 and RoB 1) and then reached consensus among the authors. The means, standard deviations and sample sizes of specific measures assessing sexual life between the intervention and control groups were entered into the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software version 3 and used to tabulate and calculate the effect size.The results show that PLISSIT model-based sexual counseling significantly improved the sexual lives of breast cancer patients in the postoperative treatment process. This improvement was found to be significant in both sexual life and sexual functioning, especially when compared with the control group receiving routine counseling.It is important for breast cancer patients to start their sexual life during cancer treatment processes and to continue their sexual life close to the pre-disease level.In this context, it is emphasized that PLISSIT model-based sexual counseling is a low-cost method that can be easily implemented by nurses. As a result, it was concluded that PLISSIT model-based sexual counseling is an effective intervention method to improve the sexual life of breast cancer patients and nurses can improve the quality of life of patients by using this model.