{"title":"Nursing students' attitudes and beliefs towards addressing sexual health: A multicentre study and latent class analysis","authors":"Dragana Milutinović , Ludmila Marcinowicz , Aurelija Blaževičienė , Barbara Politynska-Lewko , Aurika Vanckavičienė , Nina Brkić Jovanović","doi":"10.1016/j.nedt.2024.106415","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><p>To provide competent and respectful sexual health care, a critical and comprehensive assessment of students' attitudes towards sexuality is needed, which implies using reliable and valid questionnaires.</p></div><div><h3>Aim</h3><p>To assess whether the extended version of the Students Attitude Towards Addressing Sexual Health (SA-SH-Ext) provides different, additional information about students' attitudes towards providing sexual healthcare compared to the Sexual Attitude and Beliefs Survey (SABS), to explore SA-SH-Ext potential response patterns through latent class analysis and to assess students' attitudes towards providing sexual healthcare and evaluate the differences in their attitudes to the cultural background and sociodemographic characteristics.</p></div><div><h3>Design</h3><p>Multicentre, descriptive, analytical, comparative, and correlational cross-sectional study at three nursing faculties.</p></div><div><h3>Participants</h3><p>Nursing students <em>n</em> = 514 (Serbia <em>n</em> = 180, Poland <em>n</em> = 150 and Lithuania <em>n</em> = 184).</p></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><p>A general questionnaire for obtaining sociodemographic data, SA-SH-Ext and SABS were used as students' report measures.</p></div><div><h3>Results</h3><p>One part of the variance of each instrument does not overlap with the other, indicating that these instruments, in addition to the shared variance, provide different, additional information. A solution with three latent classes was found in the domain of responses to the SA-SH-Ext items. The response pattern placed nursing students in the class <em>Comfortable and prepared in some situations,</em> and the SABS score revealed students' moderately positive attitudes towards providing sexual healthcare<em>.</em> Significantly more conservative attitudes were demonstrated by students from Poland, those identifying their religious affiliation as Catholic and females, while first-year students showed more positive attitudes than those in later years of study.</p></div><div><h3>Conclusions</h3><p>The SA-SH-Ext and SABS enable a reliable and quick assessment of nursing students' comfort and competence in providing sexual healthcare. However, the differences in students' attitudes towards sexuality concerning belonging to a specific group imply a need for curriculum redesign and facilitating students to be more open to communication about sexuality with people with mental illnesses and intellectual and physical disabilities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":54704,"journal":{"name":"Nurse Education Today","volume":"144 ","pages":"Article 106415"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nurse Education Today","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0260691724003253","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background
To provide competent and respectful sexual health care, a critical and comprehensive assessment of students' attitudes towards sexuality is needed, which implies using reliable and valid questionnaires.
Aim
To assess whether the extended version of the Students Attitude Towards Addressing Sexual Health (SA-SH-Ext) provides different, additional information about students' attitudes towards providing sexual healthcare compared to the Sexual Attitude and Beliefs Survey (SABS), to explore SA-SH-Ext potential response patterns through latent class analysis and to assess students' attitudes towards providing sexual healthcare and evaluate the differences in their attitudes to the cultural background and sociodemographic characteristics.
Design
Multicentre, descriptive, analytical, comparative, and correlational cross-sectional study at three nursing faculties.
Participants
Nursing students n = 514 (Serbia n = 180, Poland n = 150 and Lithuania n = 184).
Methods
A general questionnaire for obtaining sociodemographic data, SA-SH-Ext and SABS were used as students' report measures.
Results
One part of the variance of each instrument does not overlap with the other, indicating that these instruments, in addition to the shared variance, provide different, additional information. A solution with three latent classes was found in the domain of responses to the SA-SH-Ext items. The response pattern placed nursing students in the class Comfortable and prepared in some situations, and the SABS score revealed students' moderately positive attitudes towards providing sexual healthcare. Significantly more conservative attitudes were demonstrated by students from Poland, those identifying their religious affiliation as Catholic and females, while first-year students showed more positive attitudes than those in later years of study.
Conclusions
The SA-SH-Ext and SABS enable a reliable and quick assessment of nursing students' comfort and competence in providing sexual healthcare. However, the differences in students' attitudes towards sexuality concerning belonging to a specific group imply a need for curriculum redesign and facilitating students to be more open to communication about sexuality with people with mental illnesses and intellectual and physical disabilities.
期刊介绍：
Nurse Education Today is the leading international journal providing a forum for the publication of high quality original research, review and debate in the discussion of nursing, midwifery and interprofessional health care education, publishing papers which contribute to the advancement of educational theory and pedagogy that support the evidence-based practice for educationalists worldwide. The journal stimulates and values critical scholarly debate on issues that have strategic relevance for leaders of health care education.
The journal publishes the highest quality scholarly contributions reflecting the diversity of people, health and education systems worldwide, by publishing research that employs rigorous methodology as well as by publishing papers that highlight the theoretical underpinnings of education and systems globally. The journal will publish papers that show depth, rigour, originality and high standards of presentation, in particular, work that is original, analytical and constructively critical of both previous work and current initiatives.
Authors are invited to submit original research, systematic and scholarly reviews, and critical papers which will stimulate debate on research, policy, theory or philosophy of nursing and related health care education, and which will meet and develop the journal''s high academic and ethical standards.
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