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Sexual Intervention Self-Efficacy

Andrea Miller and I investigated how clinical psychologists develop sexual intervention self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the extent to which individuals believe that they are capable of performing a specific task. It is vital that psychologists develop self-efficacy since high self-efficacy has been shown to result in improved intervention.

This research involved two linked studies. In the first study, we investigated how clinical psychology graduate students in Canada and the United States acquire self-efficacy related to intervening with clients who have sexual concerns and problems. A manuscript based on this study was published in Training and Educataion in Professional Psychology.

As her dissertation research, Andrea investigated sexual education and training at the graduate school and post-internship level and sexual intervention self-efficacy in practicing clinical psychologists. The results  suggests that psychologists get only limited sexual education at the graduate and post-internship levels. Thus, psychologists may enter their careers with little direct training related to addressing sexual concerns and problems with clients. Further, she found that psychologists lacked self-efficacy in some areas and did not routinely ask clients about sexual issues. Participants with more graduate level sex education also obtained more sex education following internship. This, in turn, led to higher sexual intervention self-efficacy with respect to use of sex therapy techniques and relaying accurate sexual information and, ultimately, to clinicians engaging in more intervention behaviours. Elements of this study were published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy and the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, and Archives of Sexual Behavior.

I am extending this research to physicians' training and self-efficacy for talking to their patients about sexuality (in collaboration with Caroline Pukall, Stephanie Boyer, and Deanne Simms as well as midwive's training and self-efficacy (with Alyssa Byers-Heinlein, Ali McCallum, and Caroline Pukall) . Data collection is underway for both studies.

Here are our publications on the topic:

Miller, S. A. & Byers. E. S. (2010). Practicing psychologists' sexual intervention self-efficacy and willingness to treat sexual issues. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 1041-1050.  DOI 10.1007/s10508-011-9877-3

Miller, S. A. & Byers. E. S. (2010). Psychologists’ sexual education and training in graduate school. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 42, 93-100DOI: 10.1080/00926230802716336

 Miller, S. A. & Byers, E. S. (2009). Psychologists’ continuing education and training in sexuality. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 35, 206-219.

 Miller, S. A. & Byers, E. S. (2008). An exploratory examination of the sexual intervention self-efficacy of clinical psychology graduate students. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 2, 137-144.

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