Sexuality of nurses: correlations of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.

In a study of relationships among knowledge, attitudes, and statements of nursing behavior about sexuality, degree of comfort with sexual situations was measured with a Professional Sexual Role Inventory (PSRI), using ridit analysis. The PSRI and the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test were administered in groups to 107 professional family planning nurses and 64 senior nursing students. The major hypothesis--the more knowledge a nurse has of human sexuality, the more favorable will be her attitude toward it and the more comfortable she will be in professional situations with sexual overtones--was supported. Significant positive correlations between sexual knowledge and attitudes and written responses indicated comfort in handling sexual situations. Analyses of variance of the test scores--by age, race, marital status, religion, religiosity, frequency of church attendance, and urbanization--demonstrated areas of sexuality which might be incorporated into nursing inservice training and education.