Development and Introduction of a Newly Developed Nurse Practitioner Run Penile Rehabilitation Program
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Abstract
Prostate cancer is the most common non cutaneous cancer in American men with 238,590 diagnosed and 29,720 deaths in 2012. Radical prostatectomy is the gold standard treatment for prostate cancer but can be associated with erectile dysfunction, potentially impacting quality of life for the patient and significant other. As many as 87 percent of post prostatectomy patients may experience erectile dysfunction. Penile rehabilitation, the use of a drug or device after radical prostatectomy to maximize the recovery of erectile function, can foster the early return of erections. However this therapy has not been uniformly adopted by urologists at a large urban tertiary care urology practice. Therefore, a nurse practitioner run penile rehabilitation program was developed for post-prostatectomy patients within this urology practice. An educational in-service about the program was delivered to the urologists during grand rounds and a post-in-service survey was given to determine if the in-service increased the providers’ intent to refer to the newly developed, nurse practitioner run, penile rehabilitation program. The results of the post in-service survey indicate that urologists would “definitely” (n=6, 54.5%) and “probably” (n=4, 36.4%) change practice by referring post prostatectomy patients to a nurse practitioner run penile rehabilitation program.