Sexual health assessments in nursing practice: quantitative analysis of nurses’ behaviors and perceptions

Sexual health is an important yet often neglected component of patient care. Most research on sexual health assessment and its place in nursing occurred from the 1970s to the early 2000s, leaving a gap in understanding nurses’ current attitudes and beliefs toward assessing patients’ sexual health. Frequencies by which sexual health assessments (SHA) are performed by nurses today is also unknown. The objective of this study was to provide an updated understanding of attitudes, beliefs, and practices of nurses regarding SHA. An online-based Likert-scale survey was administered via social media platforms for professional nurses to complete. Results indicate that nurses are comfortable and confident in performing sexual health assessments and that most participants (N =140) believe sexual health is a nursing responsibility. However, results also indicate that nurses’ frequency of performing SHA is less than it should be and additional training or education is needed to address this disparity. Statistically significant differences in participants’ comfort, confidence, and frequency (p \u3c .05) with SHA were demarcated based on their reported generational group, clinical specialty, professional role, gender, and education level. Based on these preliminary results, it was concluded that additional studies are needed to address barriers to assessing sexual health and incorporating this component of health into patients’ plans of care