The prevalence and determinants of inappropriate sexual behaviour in people with acquired brain injury in nursing homes.
Roy F Kohnen, Jan Lavrijsen, Reinier Akkermans and 2 others
PMID 33634494WHAT IT FOUND
In nursing home patients with acquired brain injury, 38.1% had inappropriate sexual behaviour, mostly mild verbal comments.
Nursing home staff should expect it during daily care and check for concurrent agitation or aggression.
Key findings
01Inappropriate sexual behaviour was present in 38.1% of patients assessed for it, and verbal comments were the most common type at 30.1%.
02Among the 43 patients with inappropriate sexual behaviour, concurrent challenging behaviours were common: verbally agitated behaviour in 66.7%, hyperactivity in 65.1%, and physically aggressive behaviour in 61.1%.
03Physically aggressive behaviour was associated with a higher total score of 0.48 on a 0 to 80 scale.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only 12 of 28 eligible nursing homes participated, and 118 of 245 eligible patients gave consent, so the findings may not apply to all nursing homes. Almost a quarter of the patients were recruited from one nursing home, and the low sample size and small number of homes limit generalizability. Professional caregivers reported the behaviours, so staff interpretation and discomfort may have led to underestimation. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show whether marriage, pain, education or aggression caused more or less inappropriate sexual behaviour. Cognitive testing may have been unreliable in aphasic patients, and physical disability could have made cognitive scores look lower.
Declared interests
No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that being married, having pain or having higher education prevents inappropriate sexual behaviour. These were cross-sectional associations from caregiver-reported scores, not tested interventions, and the study cannot show cause.