IIntrodcution: Many studies explore why health professionals fail to address sexuality but few have examined barriers to and facilitators of sexual rehabilitation provision using a theoretically-driven approach.
Objective: To synthesise barriers and facilitators reported in original studies of healthcare professionals to addressing sexuality.
Methods: Systematic review of qualitative research. SCOPUS, PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, AMED and MedLine databases were searched for studies published in English up to February 2025. Eligible studies contained original qualitative data about the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of healthcare professionals related to addressing sexuality with adults with chronic disease.Deductive analysis was used to code findings rom original studies using the Theoretical Domains Framework.
Results: The search yielded 67 eligible papers from 63 unique studies, involving 1892 health professionals from 20 countries. Attitudes and beliefs of professionals was the major barrier. Professionals and patients believe that there are more important goals and priorities than sexuality,that sexuality is a private taboo topic.Conversely, facilitators included professionals having knowledge about, and awareness of the need to discuss sexuality ,wanting extra sills and training, and perciving positive conseuqences from addressing sexuality.
Conclusion: Most self-reported barriers represent unhelpful attituds and beliefs. Behaviour change intervention can influnece these and ecourage professionals to address sexuality. Targeted intervetnions include modelling behaviour, demonstration by opinion leaders and practice using narratives.