A Multicenter Study of Nursing Students’ Perspectives on the Sexuality of People with Disabilities

Abstract

This descriptive study was conducted to investigate nursing students’ perspectives towards people with disabilities. Final-year nursing students studying in the nursing department of four state universities located in different provinces in the central Anatolia region of Turkey comprised the target population of the present study (N = 413). Of all the students, 255 gave their verbal consent to participate in the study. The study data were collected with the Personal Information Form and the Attitudes towards Sexuality of People with Disabilities Questionnaire. According to the evaluation of the perspectives of the participating students regarding sexuality of people with mental and/or physical disabilities, the items they did not agree with and the percentages of these students were as follows: “Sexuality is not important for people with mental disabilities” (79.6 %), “Sexuality is not important for people with physical disabilities” (79.6 %), “People with mental disabilities should not marry” (60.8 %), “People with physical disabilities should not marry” (79.2 %),”People with mental disabilities are not ideal sexual partners” (46.7 %) and “People with physical disabilities are not ideal sexual partners” (72.5 %). On the other hand, the items they agreed with and the percentages of these students were as follows: “People with mental disabilities are vulnerable to sexual abuse” (62.4 %) and “People with physical disabilities are vulnerable to sexual abuse” (46.7 %). The nursing students’ perspective of sexuality of people with mental and/or physical disabilities is quite positive, but they feel that their knowledge and practical experience is inadequate. Moreover, they have some difficulties such as inadequate knowledge, discomfort and lack of experience in the assessment of sexuality in dealing with the sexuality of these individuals.