A Sexual Health Workshop for Health Care Professionals

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to evaluate a three-day workshop in human sexuality for health care professionals using identified and described systematic development and evaluation components. The problem was to determine if the use of a systematic development approach obtains the desired outcomes of an educational experience. The desired outcomes include cognitive gains, attitude shifts toward more openness, and behavioral changes leading to an improvement of the quality ofsexual coun seling and therapy. The main sponsoring agency for the workshop was the Interwest Regional Medical Education Center of the Veterans Administration Hospital system. The 126 participants included physicians, psychologists, social workers, nurses, clergy, and students. The results showed that participants (1) gained significantly on cognitive scores from the pretest to the posttest, (2) shifted toward more open attitudes from pretest to posttest, and (3) incorporated many desired behaviors into their practices 10 to 11 weeks following the workshop.

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