Background
LGBTQi+ adolescents and young persons experience inequitable health service provision for contraception in public health facilities due to their gender, age, biological sexuality and sexual orientation, and the discriminatory behaviors and attitude of the community and of healthcare providers towards their health. This discriminatory behavior is twice for the LGBTQi+ AYPs. Digital education has been noted as a potential solution to increase the delivery of health professions education and addressing their attitude towards recognizing that health care services is supposed to be delivered to everyone irrespective of their gender and sexual orientation. Therefore, this study evaluates the influence of a digital training course on attitude of health care providers towards rendering Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services for LGBTQi+ AYPs.
Method
The study adopted a mix method approach where quantitative data were collected from a pre-post assessment of 20 providers trained on a digital platform. Similarly, 70% of the participants were randomly selected for an In-Depth Interview (IDI) on their attitude towards providing SRH service for adolescents including LGBTQi+.
Result
The result showed that 85% of the providers had a low attitude towards SRH service provision towards adolescents particularly LGBTQi+. After the digital training, 95% expressed confidence and empathy towards understanding the SRH needs of AYPs and also willing to provide unbiased unstigmatized SRH services to AYPs which also include contraceptive services. The IDI result also showed 95% of the providers willing to be more empathetic in meeting the SRH needs of AYPs
Conclusions
This study concludes digital training is proving to be effective and adequate for the training of healthcare providers on SRHR services for gender sensitive care delivery for AYPs.
Keywords: LGBTQi+, Digital Training Course, Attitude, Health Care Providers, Adolescents and Young Persons
