Impact of Implementing Welcoming Clinic Space Indicators on Sexual and Gender Minority Patients' Health Care Experience.

Abstract

It has been well established that those identifying as a member of the sexual and gender minority (SGM) have difficulties accessing health care services. This is strongly associated with the desire to avoid discriminatory health care practices and prejudicial providers that many SGM individuals have encountered. Implementation of specific welcoming clinic space indicators (WCSIs) has been recommended to mitigate prior health care alienation experienced by SGM individuals. The project supported three HIV clinical care sites in Louisiana to implement and maintain identified SGM WCSIs as one of its interventions to improve sexually transmitted infection screening, testing, and treatment in people with and at-risk of HIV. This project found that SGM WCSIs had a positive impact on SGM individuals and were predominately unnoticed by those that were non-SGM-identifying individuals. Further, across the entire sample, the SGM WCSIs had an extremely low (<1%) level of negative impact, eliminating the misconception that SGW WCSI implementation may offend non-SGM individuals. There were differences in the implementation of the SGM WCSIs across the three sites associated with their governance structure and priority community. Implementation of SGM WCSIs should be considered as an important component of assuring culturally competent health care for SGM individuals.