Abstract
background: Disclosure of sexual identity to healthcare providers improves healthcare quality for sexual minority women (SMW). However, not all SMW are equally likely to identify to providers, and despite the increasing use of pansexual and queer identities among younger individuals, rarely are these identity categories addressed in research on sexual minority women. As a result, we have little information about the health issues of these women in general, and the quality of their healthcare in particular. objective: This study explores the utility of the Questionnaire on the Quality of Physician-Patient Interactions (QQPPI), a unidimensional 14-item likert scale, within a sample of lesbian, bisexual, pansexual and queer-identified women. methods: Using an online survey tool, we gathered data from a sample of (n=354) lesbian, bisexual, queer and pansexual women in the United States. We assessed the reliability and validity of the QQPPI on a combined sample of sexual minority women as well as the sample divided by identity subgroups. Rresults: The QQPPI was highly reliable in the combined sample (α=.96), and maintained reliability for each identity subgroup, despite variation in the scale score means and Cronbach's alphas. Results related to predictive capacity will also be presented. conclusion: The QQPPI is a new tool and has only been used in one other sample of SMW. Despite differences that exist between groups of SMW related to healthcare experiences, our results suggest that the QQPPI is an effective tool for evaluating the quality of healthcare interactions for many groups of SMW.
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