An LGBTQIA+ Symposium to Improve Care for Sexual and Gender Minority Youth

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Multilevel factors drive health disparities experienced by sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations. We developed a 3-hour symposium focusing on care for SGM youth to address this. The symposium was a free, extracurricular event open to the public, with an emphasis on health professional students and providers from all disciplines and involved interprofessional didactic and interactive components. Methods: Participants completed optional retrospective pre/postsurveys immediately and 10 months postsymposium. Surveys contained Likert-scale questions addressing five indicators of symposium effectiveness related to knowledge, confidence, and comfort in providing care for SGM populations. We used 1-tailed paired t tests to evaluate the effectiveness of the symposium, and analysis of variance tests to compare differences by professional role. Results: Of 208 individuals who attended the symposium, 67 completed the initial survey, and 23 completed the 10-months postsymposium survey. Participants reported significantly higher (P