245 Drawing on Arts-Based Methodologies to Elicit Transgender and Gender Diverse (TGD) Children’s Experiences in Health Care

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Understand how prepubescent TGD children experience pediatric care with a dual purpose of informing clinical practice and presenting alternative methods for research with children. Centering their perspectives is critical to improving care for this age group, ultimately improving TGD health. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: A participatory arts-based study involving drawing, photo elicitation, and narrative interviews with prepubescent TGD children (n=15) in the Pacific Northwest. Participants will make photos and draw a picture of their most recent pediatric visit. Participants guide the analysis and interpretation of their artwork, informing subsequent interviews. Interviews are coded and interpreted using inductive thematic analysis at the semantic level, and verified by participants and near-peer community partners. The combination of multiple data sources that represent both stimuli and verifiers of perceptions provide methodological triangulation. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Early pilot data with community partners suggest that TGD children do not feel sufficiently supported in pediatric settings, which impacts their sense of safety and agency in the clinical context. Findings will inform changes to clinical practice to improve gender affirmation for prepubescent children, positively impact child-caregiver relationships, and ultimately improve health care and wellbeing for TGD people. Observations related to the implementation of novel methodologies will inform future research practices intended to include younger children as active agents in the knowledge production process. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: There are missed opportunities to positively impact children’s health and caregiver-child relationships when gender affirming care is overlooked in the pediatric context. This study provides first-hand multi-media perspectives to inform improvements in prepubescent gender affirming pediatric care.