Identifying Barriers in Nurses’ Sexual Healh Care Provision

Abstract

Sexuality is a basic human right and there are a range of illnesses and conditions that can affect an individual’s sexual health. There are a wide spectrum of sexual preferences, cultural and religious factors and gender identities that need to be considered by nurses in order to deliver the highest possible quality of care; a base level of understanding and consideration for these variables is something that would allow nurses to make better decisions when dealing with patients, even from sexual minorities they do not know so much about. This thesis aims to identify the barriers that prevent nurses from practicing sexual health care as an extension of the general care they provide. Research has been conducted as a qualitative literature review and a total of ten scientific articles were reviewed to inductively address the research question. The theoretical framework used in this thesis is “The Professional Competence of a Nurse Responsible for General Care” and the findings are discussed within this context. It was found that there are a number of factors that affect a nurse’s ability to practice sexual health care: knowledge and education, experience and age, feelings, beliefs and attitudes, time constraints and a lack of role-modelling. Nearly all of the peer-reviewed articles used in this study concluded that nurses lack the required knowledge to prescribe meaningful and relevant sexual health care to their patients; ways to address this are discussed in the conclusion.