What's Shaping Medical Student's Attitude Towards Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender (LGBT) Community?

Abstract

Background Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people form the basis of sexual and gender minority groups who face discrimination in their daily lives, including in healthcare facilities even though they are quite vulnerable to certain health problems. Medical student's attitudes towards the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender community greatly shape the healthcare service delivery as well as service utilization by them, thus influencing their health status in the long run. Objective To find out the knowledge, attitude, judgment, and experience of a medical student regarding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender community and its associated factors. Method This institution-based Cross-Sectional study approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee was conducted among 216 medical undergraduates of a medical college from October 2022 to February 2023 after a pilot study. Sampling was done by Stratified Random Sampling. Data were collected anonymously by using an online questionnaire. Data were analyzed via Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software using univariate and multivariable logistic regression. Result Only 37.5% of medical students had sufficient knowledge regarding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender community (mean knowledge score 69.26 ± 14.6). Upper socio-economic class students had a more positive judgment (p-value: 0.012) and positive experience (p-value: 0.040). The presence of personal contact made a significant difference in attitude (p-value: 0.001), judgment (p-value: 0.012), and experience (p-value < 0.001). Conclusion The overall attitude of medical students regarding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender community was inadequate. Their knowledge and attitude were most positively affected by any personal contact with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender community thus peer-to-peer counseling among medical students might be helpful to shed conservative attitudes and be more open-minded.