Nurses' professional development : becoming competent sex educators

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how nurses can further develop their health education role to become competent sex educators for young people. The objectives of this research were to identify young people's perceived importance of learning about sexual health; their current and perceived ideal sources of information; their perceived effective learning methods; and the personal attributes of their ideal sexual health educator. This study adopted a quantitative approach and utilised self-administered, structured questionnaires to obtain the views of Maltese post-secondary school students. A sample of 167 students were conveniently selected, of whom, 160 completed the questionnaires, resulting in 96% response rate. Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was conducted to analyse the data. The study revealed that most participants gave high rating for learning about most of sexual health topics. Participants reported learning more about sex from friends and the intemet. However, health care professionals were perceived to be the preferred source of information, followed by parents and teachers. Nurses were identified among the preferred professionals, second to doctors. While the majority preferred young educators, most respondents did not give any preference to the educators' gender. Effective communication skills, honesty and respecting confidentiality were reported as the most ideal personal attributes of a sexual health educator. CPD courses should train nurses in addressing the priority needs identified by young people (as mentioned above). In practice, nurse educators should visit various colleges and be available at sexual health services, to provide youths with expert sex and sexual health information. Researchers should explore more comprehensively why young people choose certain sources and not others in obtaining sex related information.