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, R-2 = 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.