UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

The health of people classified as lesbian, gay and bisexual attending family practitioners in London: a controlled study

King, M; Nazareth, I; (2006) The health of people classified as lesbian, gay and bisexual attending family practitioners in London: a controlled study. BMC Public Health , 6 , Article 127. 10.1186/1471-2458-6-127. Green open access

[thumbnail of king_nazareth1471-2458-6-127.pdf]
Preview
PDF
king_nazareth1471-2458-6-127.pdf
Available under License : See the attached licence file.

Download (474kB)

Abstract

Background: The morbidity of gay, lesbian or bisexual people attending family practice has not been previously assessed. We compared health measures of family practice attendees classified as lesbian, gay and bisexual.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, controlled study conducted in 13 London family practices and compared the responses of 26 lesbian and 85 bisexual classified women, with that of 934 heterosexual classified women and 38 gay and 23 bisexual classified men with that of 373 heterosexual classified men. Our outcomes of interest were: General health questionnaire; CAGE questionnaire; short form12; smoking status; sexual experiences during childhood; number of sexual partners and sexual function and satisfaction.Results: In comparison to people classified as heterosexuals: men classified as gay reported higher levels of psychological symptoms ( OR 2.48, CI 1.05 - 5.90); women classified as bisexual were more likely to misuse alcohol ( OR 2.73, 1.70 - 4.40); women classified as bisexual ( OR 2.53, 1.60 - 4.00) and lesbian ( OR 3.13, 1.41 - 6.97) and men classified as bisexual ( OR 2.48, 1,04, 5.86) were more likely to be smokers and women classified as bisexual ( OR 3.27, 1.97 - 5.43) and men classified as gay ( OR 4.86, 2.28 - 10.34) were much more likely to report childhood sexual experiences in childhood. Psychological distress was associated with reporting sexual experiences in childhood in men classified as gay and bisexual and women classified as heterosexual. Men classified as bisexual ( OR 5.00, 1.73 - 14.51) and women classified as bisexual ( OR 2.88, 1.24- 6.56) were more likely than heterosexuals to report more than one sexual partner in the preceding four weeks. Lesbian, gay and bisexual classified people encountered no more sexual function problems than heterosexuals but men classified as bisexual ( OR 2.74, 1.12 - 6.70) were more dissatisfied with their sex lives.Conclusion: Bisexual and lesbian classified people attending London general practices were more likely to be smokers and gay classified men were at increased risk of psychological distress in comparison to heterosexual classified people. Increased awareness of the sexuality of people seen in primary care can provide opportunities for health promotion.

Type: Article
Title: The health of people classified as lesbian, gay and bisexual attending family practitioners in London: a controlled study
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-6-127
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-6-127
Language: English
Additional information: © 2006 King and Nazareth; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Sex, sexual partners, quality-of-life, mental-health, homosexual-men, same-sex, united-kingdom, questionnaire, women, prevalence, behavior
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Primary Care and Population Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/68883
Downloads since deposit
107Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item