Sexual practices: are physicians addressing the issues?

The literature suggests that prior to 1981, the only groups concerned with sexual history taking were urologists, psychiatrists, and gynecologists. The appearance of AIDS, however, has made competency in this area of interviewing essential for all primary care physicians. The teaching of sexual history taking presents a challenge to educators, since it involves all three educational domains--cognitive, affective, and skills. The authors have developed an approach to teaching sexual history taking to providers in small groups utilizing videotapes that model the content and sequence of questions and confront learners about the fears and the emotional concerns they may have in obtaining these data.