Abstract
Aim of the studyStudy was planned to assess the attitudes of psychiatrists in India towards homosexuality.Subject or material and methodsAn informed consent form and a semi structured proforma were sent online to 3,348 psychiatrists across India. Multiple questions pertaining to the age, gender, religion, place of practice, work area, comfort in seeing homosexual patients and comfort in referring patients to a homosexual colleague were enquired from the consenting psychiatrists. Following which all the participants were asked to fill up the Heterosexual Attitude Towards Homosexuality (HATH) scale. Data so obtained was statistically analyzed.ResultsIn all, 190 psychiatrists consented and submitted the completed forms. The mean age of the respondents was 42.9 ± 11.8 and the male female ratio was 3.8. Most of the psychiatrists (n=105) reported that they see around 1-10 homosexual patients per year and 95.26% reported that they were comfortable doing so. Most of the psychiatrists (83.15%) were comfortable in referring a patient to a colleague knowing that he/she is a homosexual. The mean HATH score was 59.3 ± 4.6 and there was no significant difference across gender, age, place of practice and profile of practice.DiscussionThe attitude of psychiatrists in India towards homosexuality is neutral and doesn’t vary across age, gender, place of practice and profile of practice. They are mostly comfortable handling homosexual patients and referring patients to homosexual colleagues.ConclusionsPsychiatrists in India bear a neutral attitude towards homosexuality.
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