Results Summary

What was the research about?

Hospitals do not usually collect information about people’s sexual orientation and gender identity, or SO/GI. People who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer—sometimes called sexual and gender minorities, or SGM—have said it is important for doctors to know their identities to provide good care. The research team wanted to find the best way to ask all patients for this information.

In this study, the research team compared two ways to ask patients about their SO/GI in the emergency room, or ER. In one method, a nurse asked the patient. In the other method, the patient filled out a form. The team then gave a survey to a smaller group of patients about their comfort in sharing SO/GI information during their ER visits.

What were the results?

Patients who identified as SGM were more comfortable filling out a form than giving answers to a nurse. Patients who did not identify as SGM were equally comfortable with either way.

Who was in the study?

During the study, 198,137 patients went to one of four ERs in the Northeastern United States. Of these, 19,742 patients gave verbal information about SO/GI, and 3,630 patients filled out a form. The research team then gave a survey to 180 patients who were SGM and to 180 patients who did not identify as SGM about how comfortable they felt in the ER. The team also asked another 180 patients who did not answer questions about SO/GI about their comfort in the ER.

What did the research team do?

For a six-month period, ER nurses asked patients about their SO/GI. Then, for the next six months, ER staff gave patients hospital intake forms with SO/GI questions. After each six-month period, the team asked a smaller group of patients about their comfort with sharing SO/GI information with hospital staff.

What were the limits of the study?

The hospitals in the study were in the Northeastern United States. Results may differ in other locations. The study didn’t include patients who chose “other” for SO/GI. Also, the study didn’t include patients who didn’t speak English or who had a mental health condition. Not including these patients could have changed the results. Nurses may have talked only to patients they thought would answer the questions. Asking only some patients may also have changed the results.

Future research could look at how hospitals and their staff decide how to ask about SO/GI with all patients. Future studies could also include patients who don’t use common SO/GI labels and patients with mental health conditions.

How can people use the results?

Hospital staff can use these results to design a process to ask patients about SO/GI. Regularly asking all patients about SO/GI may make patients feel more comfortable sharing this information.

Final Research Report

View this project's final research report

Stories and Videos

Media Mentions

Gay and Transgender Patients to Doctors: We’ll Tell. Just Ask.
Jan Hoffman, New York Times, May 29, 2017
This Times feature on healthcare providers seeking information about patients' sexual orientation and gender identity included an interview with Principal Investigator Adil Haider, MD, MPH, on the findings of his study .

Peer-Review Summary

Peer review of PCORI-funded research helps make sure the report presents complete, balanced, and useful information about the research. It also assesses how the project addressed PCORI’s Methodology Standards. During peer review, experts read a draft report of the research and provide comments about the report. These experts may include a scientist focused on the research topic, a specialist in research methods, a patient or caregiver, and a healthcare professional. These reviewers cannot have conflicts of interest with the study.

The peer reviewers point out where the draft report may need revision. For example, they may suggest ways to improve descriptions of the conduct of the study or to clarify the connection between results and conclusions. Sometimes, awardees revise their draft reports twice or more to address all of the reviewers’ comments. 

Peer review identified the following strengths and limitations in the report:

  • The reviewers asked the researchers to provide more rationale for the multivariate analyses the study chose. The researchers responded by stating that they chose to use ordered logistic regression for their main analyses. The researchers explained that the Communication Climate Assessment Toolkit scores were categorical rather than continuous, so treating the scores as continuous could introduce bias into calculations. The researchers also provided their rationale for controlling for some factors and not others. The rationale was that the sample size for some factors may have been too small for adequate power to detect meaningful differences.
  • The reviewers expressed concern that the researchers stratified results by sex for the homosexual group but not for the bisexual and heterosexual groups. The researchers explained that their decision came after recommendations from stakeholders as well as from peer reviewers for journal articles about this study. In addition, the researchers expressed concern that stratifying by sex in the bisexual group would lead to small sample sizes with insufficient power to detect meaningful differences.
  • The reviewers noted that the report did not describe how the researchers addressed the effects of missing data on the results. The reviewers asked for more information about such effects. The researchers responded that they matched groups using only participants with complete data, so missing data did not raise issues. The researchers chose this strategy because they predicted that inputting data for missing variables was just as likely to increase bias in the sample as it was to alleviate it.
  • The reviewers were unclear about how many patients in the emergency department either weren’t asked about their sexual orientation or gender identity or declined to answer those questions. The researchers acknowledged that this lack of clarity was a limitation of the study. The researchers added that 88 percent of patients in the emergency department were not asked these questions, while 0.01 percent refused to answer. The researchers explained that patients were not asked despite the researchers’ efforts to make the questions about sexual orientation and gender identity part of routine intake procedures. However, the researchers did not believe this low rate of asking patients significantly affected the results. The team still achieved the planned sample size and produced the same communication climate results with every analysis of the data.

Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Project Information

Adil Haider, MD, MPH
Brigham and Women’s Hospital^
$1,530,716
10.25302/7.2019.AD.110114IC
Patient-Centered Approaches to Collect Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity Information in the Emergency Department

Key Dates

December 2013
September 2018
2013
2018

Study Registration Information

^Adil Haider, MD, MPH, was affiliated with Johns Hopkins University when this project was funded.

Tags

Has Results
Award Type
Health Conditions Health Conditions These are the broad terms we use to categorize our funded research studies; specific diseases or conditions are included within the appropriate larger category. Note: not all of our funded projects focus on a single disease or condition; some touch on multiple diseases or conditions, research methods, or broader health system interventions. Such projects won’t be listed by a primary disease/condition and so won’t appear if you use this filter tool to find them. View Glossary
Populations Populations PCORI is interested in research that seeks to better understand how different clinical and health system options work for different people. These populations are frequently studied in our portfolio or identified as being of interest by our stakeholders. View Glossary
Intervention Strategy Intervention Strategies PCORI funds comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) studies that compare two or more options or approaches to health care, or that compare different ways of delivering or receiving care. View Glossary
Research Priority Area
State State The state where the project originates, or where the primary institution or organization is located. View Glossary
Last updated: November 30, 2022