Public Perspectives Toward the Sexual Behavior of an Individual With Dementia Residing in Long-Term Care

Abstract

Respondents who felt that a couple should not engage in a sexual relationship commonly cited consent-related issues as their primary concern. Implications for policy development are discussed.

Public perspectives toward long-term care staff's interventions in the sexual relationships of residents with dementia

“…Prior to being read the vignettes for the current study, two separate vignette segments were read to respondents. Although these vignettes were a part of the larger study, they were analyzed and disseminated previously (E. Yelland & Hosier, 2015; E. L. Yelland, Cless, Mallory, & Cless, 2017), and thus those results will not be included. For contextual understanding, the prior vignettes indicated that a resident of an LTC facility had developed dementia and desired to engage in a sexual relationship with their spouse who did not reside in the LTC facility.…”

“…The closed ended, dichotomous response option questions served as the dependent variables for the logistic regression, and degree of obligation served as the dependent variable for the ordinal regression analysis. Age and gender of the individual portrayed in the vignette were incorporated into the model, as they proved to be a statistical predictor of attitudes in previous studies (E. Yelland & Hosier, 2015; E. L. Yelland et al., 2018). The independent variables included age, sex, degree of intimacy, and spousal disposition.…”