Introduction: More and more same-sex couples decide to become parents. As a result, health professionals such as nurses and midwives also meet such couples in their work. Their knowledge about homosexuals and their needs in health care is often lacking. Also, many healthcare workers have negative attitudes and prejudices towards homosexuals. Consequently homosexuals use less of health services and therefore have poorer health outcomes. This problem is also caused by the absence of lessons about homosexuals in nursing and midwifery study programs. Purpose: The purpose of the diploma thesis is to investigate the knowledge and attitudes of midwifery students at the Faculty of Health in Ljubljana towards homosexuals. Our goal is to determine whether it is necessary to include more content about homosexuals in the midwifery study program. Methods: In the first part of the diploma thesis, a descriptive method of empirical research was used, where we reviewed the existing literature. In the second part, we used a causal non-experimental method of empirical research, where we created an online survey among midwifery students from the Faculty of Health in Ljubljana. Results: The knowledge of midwifery students about homosexuals is satisfactory, however, they lack knowledge about the rights of homosexuals to parenthood and their needs in midwifery care. Scale of attitudes towards homosexuals, which we created ourselves, has 4,2 average score. Which means that, on average, students' attitudes towards homosexuals are positive. The media has the greatest influence on students' attitudes about homosexuals (75 %), while the influence of faculty (14 %) is negligible. As many as 81 % of students thought that they did not receive enough information about homosexuals care, during their study. Only 53 % of students felt competent enough to take care of homosexual patients. As many as 78 % of students wished that they would receive more content from the faculty about the homosexuals. Discussion and conclusion: Midwifery students need more knowledge about same-sex parenting laws and rights, as well as their needs in midwifery care. Faculties could use various methods to provide better knowledge to students and help them to become aware of their attitudes towards homosexuals. Consequently, this would help ensure more equal, empathetic and professional midwifery care for homosexual patients.
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