Determination of barriers and facilitating factors experienced by nurses and midwives working in the perinatal area to address sexuality in care

This study was conducted with the aim of identifying the barriers and facilitating factors experienced by nurses and midwives working in the perinatal area to address sexuality in care. September June 15 to September 30, 2018, the research was conducted by Dr. Zekai Tahir Burak women's Health Education and Research Hospital was conducted with 135 nurses and midwives working in perinatalogy clinics and outpatient clinics. The data was collected using the "Introductory Information Form" and the "Sexual Attitudes and beliefs scale" Number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, minimum and maximum values and Mann-Whitney U test were used in the analysis of the data. According to the research findings, it was found that all nurses and midwives were able to talk about sexuality with the woman they cared for, while the most talked about subject was family planning (88.8%). 60.0% of nurses and midwives stated that their level of knowledge about sexuality was sufficient in the perinatal period and 57.8% stated that they needed education about sexuality in the perinatal period. It was determined that 50.4% of the participants experienced barriers to speaking about their sexuality and that the most experienced obstacles were the third person in the environment (33.3%). Appropriate environment (28.1%) and appropriate time (7.4%) were found to be facilitating factors. The median score on the sexual attitudes and beliefs scale (38,0 [15,0-49,0]) of midwives and nurses whose sexuality indicates that they have a disability in speech was higher than the median score of midwives and nurses (36,0 [21,0-56,0]), indicating that they have no disability (p<0.05). In line with the results of the research, it is recommended that nurses and midwives develop training programs aimed at increasing their level of knowledge about sexuality and their ability to evaluate sexuality during pregnancy and postpartum period and use guidelines for evaluating sexuality.