Knowledge and attitude of nursing students regarding intimacy and sexuality of older adults: a cross-sectional international study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT\nBackground. Although sexual problems are frequent among older adults, they are infrequently discussed by professionals. Nursing students, as future professionals, can make an important contribution by discussing intimacy and sexuality (I&S) with older adults. In order to improve their competence in discussing I&S, current levels of knowledge and attitude needs exploration.\nAim. To investigate i) knowledge and attitude of nursing students regarding I&S of older adults, ii) difference in knowledge and attitude between Canadian and Dutch students and in different years of study and iii) frequency of discussing I&S with older adults.\nMethods. The Ageing Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale was distributed among Canadian and Dutch nursing students. Furthermore, demographics and frequencies were asked. Data was analyzed using parametric tests in SPSS.\nResults. In total, 776 students participated. The mean knowledge-score was 43.7 (SD=9.0), the mean attitude-score 63.4 (SD=16.6). Dutch students had significant less knowledge and more negative attitudes compared to Canadian students (p<0.01). Unlike attitude, the level of knowledge differed significantly per year of study: first year students had the lowest and third year students the highest levels. Most students stated they ‘never’ or ‘once’ discussed I&S with older adults (53.7%-12.9%, respectively). Reasons to avoid talking were feelings of ‘not being the right person’ (17.2%) and ‘incompetence’ (13.8%).\nConclusion. Nursing students had moderate knowledge and positive attitudes toward older adults’ I&S. The knowledge and attitude levels were lower in Dutch students compared to Canadian. This should be interpreted carefully due to possible selection bias. The knowledge-level differed per year of study. Only a minority discussed I&S with older adults.\nImplications. Moderate knowledge and positive attitudes do not mean that I&S is discussed with older adults. To ensure students feel responsible and competent, interventions should focus on continuous knowledge dissemination, role clarification and modelling.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".