Red-faced doctors must give heart patients better sex education, medical body warns

Taboos and embarrassment among both patients and medical workers are getting in the way of sex education for men with heart disease, some of whom risk their lives unknowingly by taking libido-enhancing drugs without seeking medical advice.

Nearly 70 per cent of men with heart disease received no information from medics on their sex lives post-diagnosis, a survey of 126 men by the Association of Sexuality Educators, Researchers and Therapists found.

"Even among health-care professionals, it's a kind of taboo" to talk about sex, association chairman Professor Matthew Yau Kwai-sang said.

"We are advocating that it should be part of an initial assessment to educate clients on safely engaging in intimacy."

Medical workers should be trained, the association said, in how to discuss sex and intimacy with patients.

Of the 23 per cent of patients who received advice on their sex lives after diagnosis, their most common source of information was social workers, followed by doctors and then nurses.