Why End-of-Life Conversations Can Be Difficult for Sexual and Gender Minority Patients

(Via University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus) Advance care planning — thinking about what kind of care you want and whom you want by your side at the end of your life — can be difficult under any circumstances. But for sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients — including individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, or intersex — those conversations are often made even more difficult due to stigma, fear, and discrimination.

Carey Candrian, PhD, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is senior author on new research, published in JAMA Network Open, that finds that SGM patients’ experiences of discrimination affect their selection of clinicians and cause concern about whether their end-of-life preferences will be honored.

Candrian and her fellow researchers collected survey data from SGM and non-SGM participants and conducted qualitative telephone interviews with SGM participants across the country, asking them about their end-of-life discussions with clinicians. Read on…