Senior sexual and gender minorities’ perception of healthcare services: A phenomenological approach

Baby Boomer Gay Men's Experiences with Primary Healthcare

This research explored baby boomer gay men's experiences with primary healthcare and their perspectives of future long-term care. Baby boomer gay men's perspectives about primary healthcare remain understudied in the United States. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted with 30 baby boomer men in the Southwest USA. We used semi-structured interviews to assess participants' initiation and maintenance of primary healthcare, disclosure of sexual orientation to providers, and perspectives about future healthcare needs, including long-term care. Data were analyzed with a latent thematic analysis. We found baby boomer gay men anticipate discrimination because of their sexual orientation whenever they establish healthcare with new providers. Participants identified circumstantial comfort in the new healthcare setting as a key motivator to disclose their sexual orientation. Thus, baby boomer gay men specifically sought gay or gay-friendly healthcare providers to ease the burden of managing disclosure and to permit free discussion of their sexual orientation and healthcare needs. Participants faced recurring anticipation of rejection and discrimination from healthcare providers, which extends to their perceptions of current healthcare encounters and future long-term care placement. Healthcare providers would benefit from understanding the practice implications of this dynamic. Future research on primary healthcare inclusivity is needed.

Experiences and Attitudes of the LGBTQ+ Community on Care/Nursing Homes

Recent research has found that older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people have a negative attitude toward long term care services. To build upon this, we conducted a systematic review analyzing current research into the LGBTQ+ communities' perspectives and experiences of care/nursing homes. Additionally, we sought to explore the attitudes of care/nursing home staff toward providing care for LGBTQ+ residents. To conduct this study, we used the databases Embase, Medline and Web of Science, which identified 19 articles for review. From this, we were able to draw several conclusions, including that LGBTQ+ participants were concerned that they would have to conceal their identity and experience abuse. Most staff had a positive attitude toward LGBTQ+ residents, but there were exceptions to this. Despite their positive attitude, staff often lacked awareness of LGBTQ+ issues. The results of this review suggest that care/nursing homes are not welcoming environments for sexual and gender minorities, and that staff require more training to support this community. We end with innovative suggestions to tackle these issues, such as designing coproduced services with the support of LGBTQ+ communities.

LGBTI + Persons' Experiences, Expectations, and Suggestions for Improving LGBTI + Healthcare Services in Turkey: A Qualitative Study

This study aimed to explore the experiences, expectations, and suggestions of LGBTI + persons from the health system in Turkey and their views on what kind of a health system they wish to have. Qualitative descriptive research was used as one of the qualitative research methods. Thirteen LGBTI + persons living in different provinces of Turkey were interviewed. While selecting the participants, the maximum diversity sampling method, one of the purposive sampling methods, was employed. Attention was paid to interview participants from different groups among LGBTI + persons (three gay men, five trans men, two trans women, one queer person, one lesbian person and one bisexual person). Thematic analysis was performed for the analysis of individual in-depth interviews. The expectations of the participants were grouped under three themes: (a) institutional functioning, (b) legal regulations, and (c) healthcare professionals. Each theme and 9 sub-themes demonstrate what kind of a health system LGBTI + persons want to have. Some of the common expectations of the participants are having LGBTI + friendly and free healthcare services, adoption of anti-discrimination laws, and receiving healthcare from professionals with LGBTI+-specific healthcare knowledge. Changes to be made by policy makers, hospital administrators and healthcare professionals in line with the results obtained from the research can improve the experiences of LGBTI + persons in terms of receiving a higher quality healthcare service.