Knowledge of, and Attitudes towards Sexuality of the Elderly among Nurses and Caregivers in Long-term Care Hospitals

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare knowledge of, and attitudes towards sexuality of the elderly among nurses and caregivers in long-term care hospitals. The subjects were total 306 including 150 nurses and 156 caregivers in six long-term care hospitals. It used the Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale (ASKAS) developed by White (1982) and translated by Moon (2004) in order to measure the knowledge. The attitudes were measured by the instrument developed by Kim and Lee (2000) and revised by Jeong (2010). Data was collected from September to October 2012 and analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation in SPSS 18.0. As a result of the research, there were significant differences in the knowledge of and attitudes towards sexuality of the elderly between nurses and caregivers in long-term care hospitals. Nurses and caregivers in long-term care hospitals showed significant positive correlations between knowledge of and attitudes to the sexuality of the elderly. As the caregivers in long-term care hospitals showed lower level of knowledge on the sexuality of the elderly than the nurses, they should be given a proper educational program.