ArticleBMC medical education2021
Evaluating the impact of a medical school cohort sexual health course on knowledge, counseling skills and sexual attitude change.
Article in BMC medical education, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Gaps in sexual health content of healthcare professional curriculum: a systematic review of educational interventions.BMC medical education · 2023Pooled it
- Effects of an Afrocentric Sexual Health Education Curriculum for Medical, Nursing, and Midwifery Students in Tanzania: A Single-Blinded Randomized Controlled Phase 3 Trial.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Trial
- Challenging content: a mixed-methods evaluation of a novel sexual health curriculum in doctor of physical therapy education.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Sexual health in patient care: shortcomings in medical training and experienced barriers in sexual history taking.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Addressing Sexual Dysfunction in Women With Type 1 Diabetes.Clinical diabetes : a publication of the American Diabetes Association · 2025Review
- Busting MisconSEXions: evaluation of a social media knowledge translation initiative addressing myths about sex.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Assessing comfort with sexuality-related questions in medical students: "a little discomfort is better than a lifetime of suffering in silence".Sexual medicine · 2023Article
- The start of sexual health curriculum development and evaluation at Stellenbosch University.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2023Article
- Research on Cognition and Training Needs of Sex Education during Pregnancy among Obstetricians and Obstetric Nurses in Guangdong Province Based on Mixed Research Perspective.Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSexual health is generally considered an integral part of medical and allied healthcare professional training. However, many medical schools do not offer this as a mandatory curriculum, or minimize it. Sexual health as an academic area was introduced in the 1970s, but there have been few cohort evaluations of its impact. This was limited by the availability of few psychometric scales for evaluation. We evaluated the full, mandatory, sexual health course in year 1 medicine at a large state university in the Midwest US, including the course with lectures; panels and tutorials; a video app to give students feedback on their sexual history taking skills; and a 3-station sexual history OSCE at the end of the course.
resultsSeventy-four medical students (43% of the course cohort) volunteered, for an incentive, to complete evaluation materials pre- and post-course. We used the Sexual Health Education for Professionals Scale (SHEPS), designed and with appropriate psychometric standardization for such evaluation. The SHEPS data covers 7-point Likert scale ratings of 37 patient situations, asking first how well the student could communicate with such a patient, and on the second part how much knowledge they have to care for such a patient. The third subscale examines personal sexual attitudes and beliefs. Data indicated that the matched pretest-posttest ratings for skills and knowledge were all statistically significant and with very large effect sizes. Few of the attitude subscale items were significant and if so, had small effect sizes. Sexual attitudes and beliefs may be well-formed before entry into medical school, and sexual health teaching and learning has minimal effect on sexual attitudes in this US sample. However, using the 3 sexuality OSCE cases scores as outcomes, two of the 26 attitude-belief items predicted > 24% of the variance.
conclusionsThe sexual health course produced major changes in Communications with patients sexual health skills and Knowledge of sexual health, but little change in personal Attitudes about sexuality. These data suggest that personal attitude change is not essential for teaching US medical students to learn about sexual health and sexual function and dysfunction, and comfortably take a comprehensive sexual history.
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