Perspective of medical undergraduates in India towards the LGBTQIA+ population: a short insight into changes in the medical curriculum.

Background: Understanding the attitudes of medical students towards individuals from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) community is a prerequisite for informing competencies-based medical education (CBME) guidelines to make them LGBTQIA+ inclusive. The present study was conducted to assess the attitudes of medical undergraduate students from Indian medical colleges towards the LGBTQIA+ community.

Methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in medical undergraduate students across India, which measured the opinions, beliefs, and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people using a structured questionnaire uploaded on Google Forms. After data collection, the datasheet was downloaded, cleaned, and anonymised before being imported into RStudio for analysis.

Results: A total of 273 valid entries were assessed from the online survey. There was significant gender-based differences on most traditional opinions and beliefs regarding the LGBTQIA+ population (P <0.05). The female participants appeared to be more accepting of and comfortable with all denominations of LGBTQIA+. Many of the participants believed that members of the LGBTQIA+ community are more prone to sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV/AIDS. However, a few participants also opined that the increased susceptibility to HIV/AIDS may be due to increased prevalence of intravenous drug abuse in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Conclusions: There are some misconceptions about the LGBTQIA+ community among medical students. Therefore, in order to ensure LGBTQIA+ sensitive healthcare provision, there needs to be a concerted, informed effort to incorporate necessary changes in the CBME curriculum.