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Assessing Sexual Health Literacy: A Systematic Review of Measures

Tiffany Chenneville , Morgan Haskett , Kaitlyn Ligman , Sarah Gardy , Camielle Crampsie , Trevor Hart

Abstract

Sexual health literacy refers to the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform decisions and actions related to sexual health. Given the importance of sexual health literacy for improving health outcomes, it is prudent to identify sexual health literacy measures that can be used by healthcare providers, scholars, and educators. To address this need, we used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) to conduct a systematic review. This review examined 12 databases to identify existing sexual health literacy self-report scales, subscales, or individual items that were available in English, developed for scale validation purposes, and published between 2002, the year the World Health Organization convened experts to provide a clear working definition of sexual health, and 2022. We conducted a risk of bias and quality assurance assessment of the nine articles that met inclusion criteria and coded articles along the ten components of a sexual health model used as the theoretical framework. Findings revealed mixed quality of identified measures. None of the measures received positive ratings on all eight criteria assessed or addressed all components of the sexual health model. The resultss from this systematic review suggest the need for a culturally sensitive, valid, and reliable scale to assess sexual health literacy that can be used by sexual health professionals to promote sexual health and to reduce deleterious sexual health outcomes.

SH24042  Accepted 18 March 2025

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