How to take a sexual history

Under the National Strategy for Sexual Health and HIV, most patients seeking or requiring routine sexual health care are now offered the option of being treated by the primary health care team, rather than a specialised genito-urinary medicine clinic. Taking a sexual history and making a risk assessment is a key skill for making a diagnosis and care plan. This article offers a structured approach to this task, particularly for nurses, midwives and other community health professionals. It also describes the often sensitive core questions that the professional may need to ask in order to obtain an effective sexual history and determine the risks for a particular patient.