Nursing students' metaphorical perceptions of sexuality in older people: An example of metaphor analysis

This study aims to describe the metaphorical perceptions of nursing students towards sexuality in older people through metaphor.

Age-related changes and health problems can adversely affect sexual functions. Sexuality is a basic physiological need that continues throughout life and it is important to eliminate the problems related to sexual life that occur in old age. Determining the knowledge and attitudes of nursing students, who will be health professionals of the future, towards sexuality in older people can make a significant contribution to providing holistic health care to older individuals. Therefore, it is important to determine the knowledge and attitudes of nursing students about the sexuality of older people to improve their professional competence.

This study was conducted with metaphor analysis technique based on phenomenological method.

This study was conducted in a total of 222 nursing students. The study data were collected between January and February 2022 with a questionnaire form prepared by the researchers. In the first part of the questionnaire, questions about socio-demographic characteristics were included, and in the second part, the sentence "sexuality in older people is like., because." was included to determine the metaphors developed by the students about sexuality in older people. These handwritten writings of the students were used as the main data source in this study. Content analysis was used to evaluate the metaphors.

In this study, students produced a total of 222 valid metaphors related to the concept of sexuality in older people. The metaphors revealing the students' perceptions of the concept of sexuality in older people were grouped under 5 categories; "Category related to slowing down and regression", "Category related to need or normal", "Category related to not possible", "Category related to the feeling of love, compassion and friendship" and "Unnecessary, unimportant or should not be category". In the study, it was determined that the category in which the most metaphors were generated was "related to slowing down and regression".

In the study, nursing students provided metaphors containing both positive and negative concepts related to sexuality in older people. However, most the metaphors generated contain negative concepts. To support nursing students' positive attitudes towards sexuality in older people, to change their negative attitudes, and to increase their knowledge and awareness, it is proposed to incorporate courses on sexuality in older people into the nursing curriculum and to include sexuality in older people in courses on sexuality.