Understanding Response Patterns Among Healthcare Professionals Regarding Their Attitudes Toward Working With Sexual Health-Latent Class Analysis of the SA-SH

Abstract

Background and purpose: Students in healthcare professions need to be comfortable and prepared to handle sexual health issues in their future professional role. The aim was to explore and classify response patterns of the Student's Attitudes toward Addressing Sexual Health scale (SA-SH), to increase the pragmatic usefulness of the questionnaire.

Methods: Response patterns of the SA-SH were explored with latent class analysis (LCA). The response patterns were analyzed for relevant levels of total scale scores for each class.

Results: The total score of the SA-SH can be translated into three response patterns, enabling quick and valid calculations of students' perceived level of comfort and preparedness to address sexual health issues in their future profession.

Conclusions: The SA-SH is useful for measuring nursing students' level of comfort and preparedness to address sexual health.

Keywords: nursing; psychometrics; response patterns; sexual health; validity.