Abstract
Sexual and gender minority people have unique, unaddressed healthcare needs following prostate cancer. The research team along with a group of established subject matter experts developed a training and companion materials for healthcare professionals to address this need. Post-assessment evaluation was reported in frequencies and percentages by combining results from learners who attended an original, live web-based training and learners who completed the same training on-demand via a Learning Management System. Learners from both the live and archived training reported that the training increased their knowledge to effectively work with sexual and gender minority prostate cancer survivors. Learners also reported gaining new resources and strategies they could apply to their work. Results indicate the training fills an educational gap for healthcare professionals and supports the need for additional training of healthcare professionals focused on the healthcare needs of SGM cancer survivors.
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Data Availability
Data available upon request to the corresponding author.
Notes
A note about terminology: at the time of this study, the term “LGBTQ” was used in evaluation questions, an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. Therefore, while we use the acronym SGM in the narrative, we retain the use of the acronym LGBTQ when reporting specific item responses. In addition, the authors acknowledge the limitations of the term “survivor,” which is not universally embraced by all people with a history of cancer diagnosis. In this paper, we focus on individuals with a history of prostate cancer as a “survivor,” from the time of diagnosis.
Intersectionality is a term created by critical race theorist Kimberle Crenshaw to refer to the various ways that individual social and political characteristics “intersect” to create varying experiences of discrimination and/or privilege.
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Acknowledgments
Data collection for this project was made possible, in part, by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Children’s National (CTSI-CN) which is supported through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program, grant UL1TR001876 and KL2TR001877. The CTSA program is led by the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The authors would like to thank advisory board members Jennifer Bires, LICSW, and Darryl Mitteldorf, LCSW, for their contributions to this project. Special thanks are due to Ruta Brazinskaite for assistance in preparing this manuscript.
Funding
This project was funded by a grant from the Association of Oncology Social Workers.
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MPC was the principal investigator, designed the study, and was the primary author. MPC, HG, DL, WG, and AH contributed content to the educational intervention. RS and YZ conducted descriptive analyses. CK contributed to research design and manuscript writing. All authors approved the final manuscript.
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This study was determined to be of minimal risk by The George Washington University Institutional Review Board (IRB) and approved via expedited review under category 7 of 45 CFR 46.110 (IRB #081631).
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Pratt-Chapman, M.L., Goltz, H., Latini, D. et al. Affirming Care for Sexual and Gender Minority Prostate Cancer Survivors: Results from an Online Training. J Canc Educ 37, 1137–1143 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01930-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01930-y