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Attitudes and Knowledge of Occupational Therapy Clinicians and Students Regarding the Sexuality of Disabled People
Author(s) -
Agnew P. J.,
Poulsen A.,
Maas F.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
australian occupational therapy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.595
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1440-1630
pISSN - 0045-0766
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1630.1985.tb01492.x
Subject(s) - occupational therapy , human sexuality , psychology , disease , medicine , scale (ratio) , clinical psychology , physical therapy , family medicine , gender studies , physics , pathology , quantum mechanics , sociology
A study on attitudes and knowledge of occupational therapy students and clinicians in Queensland regarding sexuality and the handicapped has been conducted for the purpose of educational planning of prospective counsellors in occupational therapy programmes for the disabled. Subjects were 29 first year, 29 fourth year occupational therapy students, and 29 practising occupational therapists from a class which graduated four years ago. The results show knowledge to be generally poor, especially in the areas of renal disease, spinal cord injury, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, alcoholism, multiple sclerosis and lower motor neurone disease. A one‐way ANOVA showed fourth year students to be more knowledgeable than the practising therapists, who in turn were better than the first year students. No differences between the three groups could be demonstrated in terms of attitude; the means of all three more than half way towards the liberal end of the scale. A discriminant analysis revealed that support for training in this area to be strongest among clinicians, possibly indicative of a perceived inadequacy in their own training in this regard.