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

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<.001) scores across all five measures of effectiveness from pre- to immediately postsymposium, and remained at significantly higher ( P<.05) scores across all measures from presymposium to 10 months postsymposium, except for comfort recommending care for SGM pediatric patients or clients. Conclusion Results suggest that the symposium improved participants' perceived effectiveness in serving SGM pediatric patients, although selection bias is a concern. Dissemination of educational approaches that incorporate interprofessional didactic and active learning components may help improve workforce capacity to improve SGM health.