A Systematic Review of Sexual Minority Women's Experiences of Health Care in the UK.

Martin Martin,Meads Meads,Varney Varney,Hunt Hunt

doi:10.3390/ijerph16173032

Abstract

Sexual minority women (SMW) experience worse health and disproportionate behavioural risks to health than heterosexual women. This mixed-methods systematic review evaluated recent studies on health experiences of UK SMW, published 2010–2018. Analysis was through narrative thematic description and synthesis. Identified were 23,103 citations, 26 studies included, of which 22 provided qualitative and nine quantitative results. SMW had worse health experiences that might impact negatively on access, service uptake and health outcomes. Findings highlighted significant barriers facing SMW, including heteronormative assumptions, perceptions and experiences of negative responses to coming out, ignorance and prejudice from healthcare professionals, and barriers to raising concerns or complaints. Little information was available about bisexual and trans women’s issues. Findings highlighted the need for explicit and consistent education for healthcare professionals on SMW issues, and stronger application of non-discrimination policies in clinical settings.

Highlights

Sexual minority women (SMW) include women defining themselves by sexual identity, behaviour or relationship status
It found that a wide variety of attributes of lesbians, healthcare providers and setting affected disclosure
Trans women were included if they identified as SMW

Summary

Introduction

There is a limited evidence base [1,2,3,4], in general, SMW experience worse mental health [5], worse physical health [6,7] and higher risk factors for physical ill-health [8,9,10,11] than their heterosexual counterparts. There have been several international systematic reviews on SMW’s experiences of healthcare in specific settings. A systematic review of lesbian disclosure to primary care providers [13] included. It found that a wide variety of attributes of lesbians, healthcare providers and setting affected disclosure. Safety was important for disclosure as was relevancy, health status, how likely a person was to be out overall, and relationship status. Socio-demographic factors such as age, ethnicity and education did not have clear links with disclosure

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion