We treat everyone equal : Health care professionals do not speak about LGBTQ questions in neither Sweden or Japan

• Older LGBTQ adults face unique challenges compared to their heterosexual cisgender counterparts. When navigating public and private spaces, LGBTQ adults experience microaggressions in their everyday life, such as hostile looks, misgendering, and being asked personal questions (Lundberg et al.). In our systematic review, we found that it was common for LGBTQ individuals to feel the need to educate healthcare professionals on LGBTQ issues, and there was a concern within the community that they may be treated negatively by professionals (Bratt et al., 2023).The current project aims to explore the attitudes and knowledge among healthcare professionals in Japan and Sweden with the purpose of finding ways to talk about LGBTQ topics and raise visibility for older LGBTQ adults. This would help to shift the responsibility for informing and educating health care professionals away from the LGBTQ community and enable a better and more equal care services. A partial goal is therefore also to design of a user-friendly, legally secure communication tool to contribute to increased inclusion and quality of life for older LGBTQ people.In our pilot study, we interviewed health care professionals about how they perceive meeting older LGBTQ people. As a starting point in the interviews, we have used images, illustrated by Dr Muraya, showing various hypothetical scenarios within elderly care.In both Japan and Sweden it was common for health care professionals to say that they have never encountered any older LGBTQ individuals. In Sweden, this was commonly followed by the comment that there would be no issues because “we treat everyone equal”. In Japan, similarly, professionals described that the topic was a non-issue. Hence, our study would help to make older LGBTQ people visible and to raise issues that are not focused on today. The poster will visualize the pictures used and present preliminary results. A future use of results will be discussed.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

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