Relationship Between the Knowledge, Attitude, and Self-Efficacy on Sexual Health Care for Nursing Students

• We assess the factors impacting nursing students on sexual health care practice.
• Structural equation modeling is used for assessment.
• Knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy to sexual health care are correlated.
• Providing nursing students knowledge of sexual health care is not sufficient.
• Improving nursing students' positive attitudes on sexual health care is needed.

Promoting patients' sexual health for better quality of life is an important task for nurses. Little is known about the factors impacting nursing students to better prepare for the future nursing practice on sexual health care. The purpose of the study is to address the need for nursing education on sexuality by exploring the relationship between nursing students' knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy for patients' sexual health care. A total of 190 senior nursing students were purposely enrolled to the study by answering a self-report questionnaire, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results demonstrated positive correlation of the relationship between knowledge of sexual health care (KSH) and attitude to sexual health care (ASH; γ = .35, t = 3.31, P < .001), the relationship between KSH and self-efficacy for sexual health care (SESH; γ = .29, t = 2.98, P < .01), and relationship between ASH and SESH (γ = .34, t = 4.30, P < .001). Therefore, nursing educators need not only provide students the knowledge and skills on sexual health care but also educate them about positive attitudes on sexuality to enhance their efficacy to deal with the patients' sexuality matters in the future nursing practice.