TY - JOUR
T1 - Teaching Health-Care Providers to Query Patients With Cancer About Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Status and Sexual Health
AU - Cathcart-Rake, Elizabeth J.
AU - Breitkopf, Carmen Radecki
AU - Kaur, Judith
AU - O’Connor, Jennifer
AU - Ridgeway, Jennifer L.
AU - Jatoi, Aminah
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - End of life is difficult for all patients but sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are prone to isolation and loneliness, especially if their SGM status is unknown or unaccepted. In oncology clinics, where goals of care discussions about end of life are integral and frequent, querying patients about their SGM status and sexual health is of particular importance. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recently released a position statement that called for greater focus on SGM populations with the goal of reducing and eventually eliminating disparities in cancer care within this group. An important first step in addressing such disparities is learning how best to train cancer health-care providers to ask patients about their SGM status and about sexual health in general. This article summarizes the mandate for understanding cancer issues in SGM populations and the dearth of cancer-related data within this group. This article also describes an ongoing 3-part study intended to build a mini curriculum with the goal of helping cancer health-care providers to ask patients with cancer about SGM status and to ask all patients with cancer about sexual health issues. The results of this ongoing study could potentially improve end-of-life care for subgroups of patients.
AB - End of life is difficult for all patients but sexual and gender minorities (SGM) are prone to isolation and loneliness, especially if their SGM status is unknown or unaccepted. In oncology clinics, where goals of care discussions about end of life are integral and frequent, querying patients about their SGM status and sexual health is of particular importance. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recently released a position statement that called for greater focus on SGM populations with the goal of reducing and eventually eliminating disparities in cancer care within this group. An important first step in addressing such disparities is learning how best to train cancer health-care providers to ask patients about their SGM status and about sexual health in general. This article summarizes the mandate for understanding cancer issues in SGM populations and the dearth of cancer-related data within this group. This article also describes an ongoing 3-part study intended to build a mini curriculum with the goal of helping cancer health-care providers to ask patients with cancer about SGM status and to ask all patients with cancer about sexual health issues. The results of this ongoing study could potentially improve end-of-life care for subgroups of patients.
KW - LGBTQ health
KW - disparities
KW - oncologic disparities
KW - sexual and gender minorities
KW - sexual health
KW - transgender health
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059582730&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85059582730&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1049909118820874
DO - 10.1177/1049909118820874
M3 - Article
C2 - 30599758
AN - SCOPUS:85059582730
SN - 1049-9091
VL - 36
SP - 533
EP - 537
JO - American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
JF - American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
IS - 6
ER -