Health Professional Students' Experiences with Gender-Identity Inclusive Content in the Classroom and Supervised Clinical Learning

Purpose: Gender-identity diverse populations have unique healthcare needs, but they experience stigmatization leading to negative health outcomes. Healthcare professionals have reported obstacles to delivering affirming care to gender-identity diverse patients due to limited training. We assessed how health profession students encounter gender-identity content and how students’ perceived preparedness to provide care for gender-identity diverse populations. Methods: A survey distributed to students enrolled in health professional programs at a large mid-western university included close-ended questions about exposure to gender-identity diverse curricular content in didactic and supervised clinical settings and perceived preparedness to work with gender-identity diverse populations. Open-ended questions asked what could better prepare learners with knowledge or skills to work with gender-identity diverse clients in classroom and clinical learning settings, respectively. Descriptive statistics were calculated for close-ended questions. Open-ended responses were examined through a content analysis approach. Results: Most respondents indicated they are taught about inclusive language (66%, n=29/44) and gender-identity inclusive content should be incorporated into curricula (71%, n=31). Of those who indicated they were exposed to this population in course or clinical settings, less than half felt their coursework prepared them to work with gender-identity diverse patients (49%, n=17/35) and less felt their clinical experiences prepared them (17%, n=6). Through open-ended responses, respondents indicated needing more exposure to this population through applied learning or in clinical settings. Conclusions: By identifying gaps within didactic and clinical curricula, educators are informed to develop effective interventions to prepare health profession trainees to provide respectful, comprehensive care to all patients.