LGBTQ persons perceptions on person-centred care on Twitter

This project is affiliated with GPCC.

The project follows the premise of person-centred care (PCC) as a holistic model of care in which all persons are included. A group for which this is particularly important are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) healthcare seekers. They are often discriminated against and occasionally refused treatment because the healthcare system does not recognise their needs. This study aims to see their unique perspective on their healthcare treatment and the need for PCC . A previous study ¹ from two researchers in this project focused on PCC in general in which some exciting tweets came up on LGBTQ care issues that did not have a place in that paper but are interesting to investigate further.

Here is an example of one of those tweets: Ppl often ask me why i dont go to lgbtq centered doctors & its cuz I need a primary care doctor too I cant just go to clinics that are 10 thousand miles away from me. Im not a financially privileged lgbtq person nor do I got a car.

This study’s data will be gathered through tweets as, although somewhat widespread in a population, the LGBTQ community comes together on Social Network Platforms. For this study, both English and Spanish tweets are sought to investigate this issue as this is a trending topic in both the USA and Latin-America. In the previous study 16 translations of PCC were added in the data collections and only a few non-English tweets were included as many people tweet in English rather than their mother tongue. Moreover, Europeans use Twitter mostly for promotional purposes rather than expressing personal experiences which is different from way Americans and Hispanic countries use Twitter which is more related to update others about their lives².

1.           van Diepen C, Wolf A. “Care is not care if it isn’t person-centred”: A content analysis of how Person-Centred Care is expressed on Twitter. Heal Expect. 2021;(July 2020):1-8. doi:10.1111/hex.13199

2.          Johnson PR, Yang S-U. Uses and Gratifications of Twitter. In: The Communication Technology Division of the Annual Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Boston, Massachusetts; 2009:1-32.