Title: Nurses' experiences of conversations with patients about sexual health: a qualitative literature review.

Background: Sexual health and sexuality are included in all dimensions of health and can be affected by illness, dysfunction and injury. Conversations about patients' sexual health and sexuality were part of the professional role of nurses. Despite this, it emerged that conversations about sexual health were not conducted by the nurses, which led to holistic nursing with clear shortcomings.

Aim: The aim was to describe nurses' experiences of talking about sexual health with adult patients in inpatient care.Method: The research design in this qualitative literature review has an inductive approach. The analysis was carried out through five steps (Friberg, 2017).

Results: Four main categories emerged with twelve subcategories; When the conversation arises (the value of the conversation for care, knowledge and experience, relationship between nurse and patient), Uncertainty about responsibility (nurse's initiative to talk, patient's initiative to talk, the interprofessional team), Nurse's prejudices and values (professional values, personal values, the nurse's priorities, own power in the care relationship) and The impact of the environment (organization and system and society's norms).

Conclusion: Nurses need improved knowledge, experience and training to initiate conversations about sexual health and sexuality with patients. Future research needs to examine what improvement measures are required to implement sexual health conversations in clinical work.

Keywords: conversations, experiences, nurses, patients, sexual health, sexuality.