Sexual minority cancer survivors' satisfaction with care

ABSTRACT

Satisfaction with care is important to cancer survivors' health outcomes. Satisfaction with care is not equal for all cancer survivors, and sexual minority (i.e., lesbian, gay, and bisexual) cancer survivors may experience poor satisfaction with care. Data were drawn from the 2010 LIVESTRONG national survey. The final sample included 207 sexual minority cancer survivors and 4,899 heterosexual cancer survivors. Satisfaction with care was compared by sexual orientation, and a Poisson regression model was computed to test the associations between sexual orientation and satisfaction with care, controlling for other relevant variables. Sexual minority cancer survivors had lower satisfaction with care than did heterosexual cancer survivors (B = −0.12, SE = 0.04, Wald χ² = 9.25, p< .002), even controlling for demographic and clinical variables associated with care. Sexual minorities experience poorer satisfaction with care compared to heterosexual cancer survivors. Satisfaction with care is especially relevant to cancer survivorship in light of the cancer-related health disparities reported among sexual minority cancer survivors.

KEYWORDS:

• cancer survivorship
• care satisfaction
• sexual orientation

Funding

This research was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grant R25CA102618-05. The authors acknowledge the contributions of the LIVESTRONG Foundation whose publicly available survey data were used for this report. Readers who wish to request use of the data should contact LIVESTRONG Foundation ([email protected]).