Engaging Sexual and Gender Minority Older Adults to Elicit Concerns and Recommendations for Communicating Care Preferences in Long-Term Care: Focus Group Findings

ABSTRACT

Objectives

1) Describe sexual and gender minority (SGM) older adults’ current practices and concerns for communicating end-of-life (EOL) and daily care preferences in long-term care (LTC); 2) Elicit ideas about adapting a video-based intervention to facilitate communication.

Methods

After consulting a community advisory board, we conducted two focus groups with SGM older adults ≥55 years of age recruited from a community-based service organization (n = 4) and a continuing care retirement community (n = 9). We audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded data using directed content analysis methods and summarized results descriptively.

Results

Most participants were cisgender (n = 12), female (n = 11), lesbian (n = 10), White and non-Hispanic (n = 13); mean age was 70.62. Participants’ concerns included discrimination, autonomy, chosen family, and community; they linked daily care preferences with personhood and quality of life. They advocated for building intentional community-based support networks to help peers discuss preferences and produce videos before LTC transition and ensure compliance after.

Conclusions

For SGM older adults, asserting and protecting their full personhood, through daily care preferences, is essential to quality of life in LTC.

Clinical Implications

Video-recorded statements of daily preferences, facilitated and supported by a peer network, could promote culturally competent, person- and community-centered care for SGM older adults in LTC settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Care coordination
• care preferences
• communication
• LGBT
• long-term care
• SGM

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University of Utah College of Nursing.