Adolescent Pride Festival Attendees—Assessing Their Interactions With Primary Care Physicians

Rachel Cafferty, Brinda Desai, Zineb Alfath, Cynthia Davey, Kari Schneider

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Purpose: Pride festivals celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community. This study aimed to describe adolescent Pride festival attendees, determine rates of accessing health care via their primary care physician (PCP), and assess if providers are discussing sex and offering screening for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) to these adolescents. Methods: Adolescents, aged 13–17 years, attending the 2017 Minnesota Pride Festival were invited to complete an 18-question survey regarding gender identity, sexual orientation, access to a physician the preceding year, and whether sexual activity was discussed and/or STI screening provided at these encounters. Results: A total of 490 surveys were evaluated. Sixty-nine percent of respondents identified as having nonheterosexual orientation. Rural participants were significantly more likely to identify as LGBT than urban or suburban participants. The majority (90%) of adolescents had been seen in the past year by a physician. Of these, 68% had been asked a sexual history, and 29% were offered STI testing. Older adolescents were more likely to be asked about sex and offered STI testing by a physician. Identifying as LGBT was not associated with rate of sexual history taken or STI screening offered but was associated with perceived need for STI testing. Conclusions: LGBT youth attending Minnesota Pride are accessing a PCP with the same regularity as cisgender, heterosexual peers but are infrequently offered STI testing, despite knowledge of increased STI rates in this population. Taking a sexual history and screening for STIs is something all physicians can do and represents an important first step in any STI reduction initiative.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)666-671
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Adolescent Health
Volume66
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Cynthia Davey is a biostatistician in the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Minnesota. Her time/efforts are paid for and covered by a grant at the University of Minnesota, supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences , grant UL1TR002494 . The authors received no external funding for this study. The biostatistician efforts were covered by the University grant funding.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine

Keywords

  • Adolescent
  • Gender identity
  • Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT)
  • Pride festival
  • Sexual orientation
  • Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)

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