The knowledge and attitudes of student nurses towards patients with sexually transmitted infections: Exploring changes to the curriculum

Sexual health attitudes and beliefs among nursing faculty: A correlational study

BACKGROUND

Sexual health is an integral part of nursing care across the life span. Nurses internal and external factors influenced their knowledge, experiences, and competencies. These impact nursing education and professional practice. There was no known research regarding the nursing faculty's sexual health attitudes and beliefs and the relationship with predictive factors.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose aims to identify any statistical relationships between nursing faculty age, nursing educational level, nursing specialty, years of work, and years of teaching in nursing to predict their sexual health attitudes and beliefs.

DESIGN

This is nonexperimental and quantitative research of predictive correlational design with multiple linear regression statistical analyses.

SETTINGS

Data gathered from nursing faculty across the United States.

PARTICIPANTS

Nursing faculty teaching at the baccalaureate, master, and or advanced practice nursing programs.

METHODS

Online survey of sexuality attitudes and beliefs (SABS).

RESULTS

A convenience sample of 371 nursing faculty. The results showed a statistically significant and a moderate correlation (R = 0.35, R² = 0.12, F(9, 361) = 5.68, p < 0.01) of their sexual health attitudes and beliefs and the predictors. This indicated nursing faculty with a doctorate, women's health specialty, and increased years for age, nursing practice, and teaching showed lower SABS scores or barriers to addressing sexual health. The social cognitive theory and Benner's novice to expert model explained the relationship between predictors and sexual health attitudes and beliefs.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study showed personal, educational, and professional factors as predictors affecting positively or negatively the faculty's sexual health attitudes and beliefs. Awareness of those findings should promote changes in nursing education, decrease sexual health barriers, and prepare faculty, students, and nurses to provide sexual health care across the life span.

Understanding Response Patterns Among Healthcare Professionals Regarding Their Attitudes Toward Working With Sexual Health-Latent Class Analysis of the SA-SH

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Students in healthcare professions need to be comfortable and prepared to handle sexual health issues in their future professional role. The aim was to explore and classify response patterns of the Student's Attitudes toward Addressing Sexual Health scale (SA-SH), to increase the pragmatic usefulness of the questionnaire.

METHODS

Response patterns of the SA-SH were explored with latent class analysis (LCA). The response patterns were analyzed for relevant levels of total scale scores for each class.

RESULTS

The total score of the SA-SH can be translated into three response patterns, enabling quick and valid calculations of students' perceived level of comfort and preparedness to address sexual health issues in their future profession.

CONCLUSIONS

The SA-SH is useful for measuring nursing students' level of comfort and preparedness to address sexual health.

Advocating for Adolescent and Young Adult Male Sexual and Reproductive Health: A Position Statement From the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine

There is a critical need to improve the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education and care of adolescent and young adult (AYA) males around the globe, as SRH is a basic human right for all AYAs. This special attention toward the SRH of AYA males is warranted given the fact that they often have difficulty accessing SRH services and education relative to their female counterparts and have higher rates of sexual risk behaviors than females. To promote AYA males' SRH and the health of their sexual partners and children, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) recommends that leaders in research, policy, public health, and clinical practice develop and implement evidence-based, comprehensive SRH education that supports AYA males at school, within communities and families, and through healthcare services that are developmentally appropriate, gender affirming, inclusive of, and informed by AYA males. Additionally, SAHM recommends that healthcare systems and healthcare professionals (HCPs) across disciplines establish and implement competencies for SRH education and skills preparation to meet the unique needs of AYA males across diverse healthcare and community settings. This statement examines multilevel barriers that AYA males face in accessing comprehensive SRH education and services and makes recommendations aligned with the World Health Organization's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals to address such barriers, improve AYA male SRH, and promote overall gender equity in SRH services.

Nursing students' alternative beliefs regarding care for patients suffering from depression

Depression is an illness that constitutes a major challenge for Public Health worldwide. Therefore, there is a clear need to receive training to care for this type of patient. This study sets out to identify alternative non-scientific beliefs among nursing students regarding the topic of depression after studying the module of Psychopathology. This study enrolled 102 third year undergraduate nursing students. The students resolved a case on an individual basis in written form which was analysed qualitatively. In this study, we have found that, despite having undergone information-transfer educational training in relation to the physiopathology of depression, nursing students persist in holding unscientific beliefs about this condition. On the basis that the opinions of nurses about depression can influence the care of their future patients, it is important to consider these alternative beliefs as learning difficulties in order to design an effective teaching instruction.

Evaluation of an assessment instrument for a sexual health curriculum for nurses and midwifery students in Tanzania: The sexual health education for professionals scale (SHEPS)

We assessed the structure and content of a new scale, the SHEPS, to assess change in sexual health confidence, knowledge and attitudes in nursing and midwifery students following an intervention (a 2-day standardized workshop on sexual health). Students were 78 Tanzanian nursing and midwifery students attending a University of Health Sciences, who were assessed immediately before and after the workshop on matched pre- and post-workshop questionnaires. Data confirmed significant changed pre- and post-test on knowledge and confidence on topics taught in the workshop, with the effect also extending to some topics not or minimally covered, suggesting that there was a general increase in confidence and a perception of increased knowledge following the workshop. There was power to detect differences even with a moderate sized matched sample. Correlations between knowledge and confidence on the same content items were between 0.52 and 0.63, suggesting that respondents could clearly distinguish between knowledge and confidence. There were no significant differences pre- and post-test on several controversial cultural and religious attitudes including on abortion and non-vaginal penetrative sex. Alpha coefficients were 0.93 for pre-test and 0.90 for post-test. This field test demonstrates the preliminary appropriateness of the SHEPS as a tool for evaluating sexual health interventions in health care workers.

A scoping review of the literature on nursing practices with persons seeking care for sexually transmitted infections

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To examine existing research literature to ascertain what is known about nursing practice in sexually transmitted infection care and identify promising research trends and limitations.

BACKGROUND

Sexually transmitted infections continue to be a significant public health concern with more than 357 million new cases occurring annually worldwide. Nurses are vital for the prevention and care of those affected by sexually transmitted infections. As nursing scope of practice is evolving, there is an urgent need to develop a baseline understanding of the state of nursing knowledge in sexually transmitted infection care.

DESIGN

Nurse researchers and policy and practice experts conducted a scoping review of primary research using Arksey and O'Malley's five-step methodological framework.

METHODS

Primary research literature published between 2000-2014 was searched. Seventeen full-text papers were thematically analysed. Electronic charts were created for data coding and extraction.

RESULTS

The research literature in nursing and sexually transmitted infection care is heterogeneous in topic, method and populations investigated. Sexually transmitted infection care is undertaken by nurses in diverse settings and roles including nurse practitioners and public health, school and emergency room nurses. Three themes that illustrate the main focus of current literature were identified: (1) screening, (2) health education and counselling and (3) scope of nursing practice. Inconsistencies in nursing practice activities in sexually transmitted infection care were noted. Many nurses are not working to their full scope of practice.

CONCLUSIONS

The research in sexually transmitted infection nursing practice is limited. Further research is needed to investigate the context of practice and patient care experiences; to design and test interventions to support nurses working to full scope of practice; and to improve the conceptualisation of nursing in sexually transmitted infection care.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Nurses are effectively improving health outcomes among people affected by sexually transmitted infections; however, not working to the full scope of practice could limit our capacity to fully meet patient care needs.

Preparing Student Nurses as Parent-based Adolescent Sexual Health Educators: Results of a Pilot Study

OBJECTIVES

While health promotion and patient education are central to the scope of practice of professional nurses, they often feel ill-equipped to assume the role of sexual health educator and lack adequate knowledge and skills to effectively engage parents in adolescent sexual and reproductive health efforts.

DESIGN AND SAMPLE

Employing a mixed-methods study consisting of both pre- and post-test survey and exit interviews, a pilot study was conducted to assess the impact of implementing a parent-based adolescent sexual health intervention on baccalaureate nursing student outcomes (N = 31).

RESULTS

We found statistically significant improvements in student outcome expectancies of parenting strategies, barriers to sexual health communication, self-efficacy, and sexual health counseling experience. Using thematic content analysis of exit interview content, emerging themes were (1) need for increased sexual and reproductive health (SRH) preparation, (2) wanting greater experience and opportunity for involvement in nursing research, and (3) educational gaps in family-focused community public health.

CONCLUSIONS

Incorporating adolescent sexual health education into public health nursing clinical training can prepare nurses as parent-based adolescent sexual health educators, a core competency for nurses working with families in communities and across all health care delivery settings.