Medical and Health Care Professionals’ Sexuality Education: State of the Art and Recommendations

Valeria Verrastro, Valeria Saladino, Filippo Petruccelli and Stefano Eleuteri
Additional contact information
Valeria Verrastro: Faculty of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University “Magna Graecia” of Catanzaro, Via Scesa Eroi, 23, 88100 Catanzaro, Italy
Valeria Saladino: Faculty of Economics, Mercatorum University, Piazza Mattei, 10, 00186 Rome, Italy
Filippo Petruccelli: Faculty of Economics, Mercatorum University, Piazza Mattei, 10, 00186 Rome, Italy
Stefano Eleuteri: Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00178 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: Sexuality is considered an important aspect of holistic care, but research has shown that it is often not considered, as it should be, in health services. Addressing clients’ sexuality requires a multidisciplinary approach and is not the responsibility of a single professional. The literature underlines that university students or those working in hospitals and other health care facilities are not adequately prepared to meet patients’ needs regarding sexuality. The objective of this study was, therefore, to review the scientific literature addressing training courses for health professionals in sexuality between 2000 and 2020. Several studies have shown enhancement in health care professionals’ ability to deal with patients’ sexuality issues after participating in sexuality education programs, regardless of the course load and modality, even if the long-term effects have still to be proved. Health care professionals therefore require education in the area of sexuality, regardless of their discipline. According to the articles reviewed, in order to improve the performance and comfort level of health care professionals to deal with patients’ sexuality, investments in training are necessary. Further evaluations of interdisciplinary sexuality education programmes should use larger samples and explore the differences across disciplines.

Keywords: education; health care professionals; sexuality; training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/7/2186/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/7/2186/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:7:p:2186-:d:336914

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().