Adolescent Comfort With Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Collection and Preferences for Electronic Health...

Assessing sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) is a key element in delivering high quality health care to adolescents and young adults (AYAs). However, AYA perspectives on SOGI data collection remain understudied. Therefore, we aimed to assess perceived importance of and comfort with SOGI data collection.

AYA attending outpatient visits completed an anonymous survey. We assessed importance (Likert scale: 5 = strongly disagree to 1 = strongly agree) and comfort with various collection methods (yes/no), as well as willingness to share name and/or pronouns in the electronic health record (EHR) (yes/no). AYA were classified as transgender and gender diverse (TGD) versus cisgender; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, other versus heterosexual. Mean scores were calculated and t-tests used to compare importance across groups; Fisher's exact tests were used to compare comfort and EHR preferences across groups.

Of 260 AYA ages 10 to 26, 50% were TGD and 52% were lesbian, gay, bisexual, other. The mean importance of gender identity among all AYA was 3.9, and TGD had higher ratings than cisgender AYA (4.4 vs. 3.6, p < .001). There were no differences between cisgender and TGD AYA with respect to sexual orientationimportance (3.6 vs. 3.3, p = .08). Ninety-six percent of AYA were comfortable with one or more methods of SOGI collection. Nearly all (96%) TGD youth were willing to share both their name and pronouns in the EHR.

Most AYA consider SOGI collection important and are comfortable being asked in clinic. Nearly all TGD youth preferred sharing both their name and pronouns in the EHR.