Evaluation of an assessment instrument for a sexual health curriculum for nurses and midwifery students in Tanzania: The sexual health education for professionals scale (SHEPS)

Abstract

We assessed the structure and content of a new scale, the SHEPS, to assess change in sexual health confidence, knowledge and attitudes in nursing and midwifery students following an intervention (a 2-day standardized workshop on sexual health). Students were 78 Tanzanian nursing and midwifery students attending a University of Health Sciences, who were assessed immediately before and after the workshop on matched pre- and post-workshop questionnaires. Data confirmed significant changed pre- and post-test on knowledge and confidence on topics taught in the workshop, with the effect also extending to some topics not or minimally covered, suggesting that there was a general increase in confidence and a perception of increased knowledge following the workshop. There was power to detect differences even with a moderate sized matched sample. Correlations between knowledge and confidence on the same content items were between 0.52 and 0.63, suggesting that respondents could clearly distinguish between knowledge and confidence. There were no significant differences pre- and post-test on several controversial cultural and religious attitudes including on abortion and non-vaginal penetrative sex. Alpha coefficients were 0.93 for pre-test and 0.90 for post-test. This field test demonstrates the preliminary appropriateness of the SHEPS as a tool for evaluating sexual health interventions in health care workers.

Cultural and clinical challenges in sexual health care provision to men who have sex with men in Tanzania: a qualitative study of health professionals’ experiences and health students’ perspectives

“…This leaves them vulnerable to having the same high levels of stigma and negative attitudes towards stigmatized groups, including sexual and gender minority populations and also young people who are sexually active. Health workers' cultures and moral values, as well as lack of comfort in addressing sexual problems, are identified as common barriers to good clinical care [34][35][36].…”

Addressing the Healthcare Needs of African Men who have Sex with Men: Barriers to Healthcare and Promoting HIV and STI Treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“…This indicates that HCW education regarding LGBT-related aspects could alleviate many of the problematic attitudes exhibited by HCWs toward MSM. Ross et al (2018b) conducted a Tanzanian study using a related approach with a more comprehensive curriculum covering the broad field of sexual health. The study involved a two-day sexual health workshops, focusing on sexual health generally but also including information on MSM, using a curriculum developed by a large US university in conjunction with a UN agency.…”

Evaluating the impact of a medical school cohort sexual health course on knowledge, counseling skills and sexual attitude change

“…Evaluation of contemporary sexual health courses requires relevant and standardized evaluation instruments. The SHEPS (Sexual Health Education in Professionals Scale) was developed by Bayer and Shindel in the late 2010s [22] and was first evaluated in both the U.S. and East Africa [23,24]. A central characteristic of the SHEP S is that instead of looking at general estimates of sexual health knowledge, it focuses on 37 specific provider knowledge questions where the stem was about providing sexuality services, based on the item of specific patient types (e.g.…”