A Missing Piece of Occupational Therapy Education: Attitudes About Sex

Abstract

Following a lecture on sexual health and function, occupational therapy students were surveyed regarding their past sex education and their comfort level with the topic of sex. Students indicated a lack of sexual education received from parents/guardians and a prevalence of fear-based education from formal or informal sources. Results reflected a significant increase in students’ perceived comfort level with the topic following the lecture from a provider trained and certified in sexual health. As sexuality falls within the domain of occupational therapy, these results suggest a need for comprehensive sex education taught to students by qualified instructors.

Keywords:

• Comfort level
• function
• health
• sex education
• survey
• training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Kink refers to non-mainstream consensual or sexually diverse preferences (Skurtu, 2017).

2 There may be more populations other than those included in the acronym “LGTB”; a currently used acronym is LGBTQIA2S+ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or gender expansive, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual, and two-spirit).

3 A cisgender person is a male or female who refers to their current gender identity as the same gender they were assigned at birth (Stardust et al., 2017).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.