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Abstract
Sexual wellness, an important component of overall quality of life, is often ignored or omitted from the scope of recreational therapy practices, mostly due to attitudes, beliefs, and lack of formalized training and education. No prior research exists on the attitudes of recreational therapists (RT) and students toward incorporating sexual wellness into practice for individuals with disabilities. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the current attitudes of practicing recreational therapists, as well as the attitudes of current students on sexual wellness within the scope of recreational therapy practices. A cross-sectional survey design was employed with a purposive sample of 112 RT practitioners and students. Results indicated that both RT students and practitioners believe that sexual wellness is an important component of rehabilitation and should be included in undergraduate and graduate education. Implications for practice and research are presented.
Keywords
Attitudes, disability, recreational therapists, sexual wellness, students
Introduction
Sexuality, a core aspect of being human, expands beyond the physical act of sex and includes the emotional, social, and psychological lived experience (Neufeld et al., 2002) that fits within the scope of practice of recreational therapy (RT) (Piatt et al., 2018; Piatt, 2019; Piatt et al., 2020). Adopting this mindset of sexual wellness as an RT facilitation technique within our scope of practice may change the attitudes of current practicing recreational therapists and students who provide RT services across diverse disability categories. Although prior research has examined attitudes and training on sexuality among occupational therapy (OT) students and practitioners (Jejelaye et al., 2019), no data were found on the attitudes of recreational therapy practitioners and on sexuality and disability, even though sexuality plays a significant role in overall wellness (National Wellness Institute, 2020). Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of relevant training, research, and discussion of sexuality in general within RT (Piatt et al., 2018; Piatt, 2019; Piatt et al., 2020; Snead et al., 2016). Wellness, often cited within RT research (i.e., Townsend et al., 2018) tends to omit sexual wellness from the discussion.
Although some RT modalities do include small components of sexual wellness (i.e., healthy boundaries, relationships, social skills training, and communication skills) (Austin, 1982; Porter, 2016; Stumbo, 2002), we believe the attitudes of recreational therapy practitioners and students...