Attitudes of medical students and physicians about homosexuality and health care experiences of gays and lesbians

Homosexuality is still being considered as a situation ?to be cured? in some medical settings, despite the fact that homosexuality had been excluded from international classification systems many years ago. Social negative attitudes and behaviors faced by homosexual individuals may cause mental health problems, yet the same negative attitudes and behaviors of health caregivers may limit their rights to get medical care.This study aimed to investigate attitudes and opinions of psychiatrists, physicians other than psychiatrists, and first grade medical students about homosexuality, as well as attitudes of health caregivers faced by gays and lesbians.In this study, a new valid and reliable scale that measures attitudes toward homosexuality consisting of 4 subscales (heterosexism, homophobia, homonegativism, neutrality) was developed.Results of this study indicate that a negative attitude towards homosexuality was related to being male versus female, being single versus married, being graduated from vocational high schools or vocational religious high schools versus public high schools / science high schools / Anatolian high schools or similar high schools, being medical student or academic versus medical specialists, working at university versus other institutions. Negative attitudes towards homosexuality were higher in rural versus urban areas, and in more religious individuals. Student group was the most homophobic group of all and it was followed by physicians other than psychiatrists and psychiatrists respectively.With regard to experiences of homosexual individuals, it was found that; homosexual individuals were faced with negative attitudes and behaviors in health care system and were unjustly treated, homophobic and heterosexist attitudes were especially seen implicitly in mental health area and physicians were rather uninformed about homosexuality.When these results are considered, qualifying university education -especially medical education- in Turkey seems rather necessary and important, in order to advance homosexual people rights and freedom for social equality, as well as increase awareness of physicians and other specialists working at health care about homosexuality and homosexual individuals.Key words: sexual orientation, homosexuality, homophobia, health care