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The Cardinal Edge

Abstract

It is essential for medical students to effectively communicate with patients of all gender identities. Evaluating nonverbal behavior is one way to assess the quality of patient care – examining providers’ behaviors while working with cisgender and transgender patients can identify potential biases linked to patient identity. To evaluate nonverbal behavior, the authors analyzed video-recorded training sessions with medical students interviewing standardized patients who identified as cisgender or transgender women. All students identified as cisgender men or cisgender women. The authors rated ten nonverbal behaviors from 1-7 and noted whether these behaviors were perceived to detract from the encounter. Average scores for nonverbal behaviors were similar between students working with cisgender and transgender patients. Nodding frequency showed the largest difference between cisgender (m = 5.65) and transgender (m = 4.93) patients. When considering student gender identity, cisgender men had lower facial expressivity and smiling frequency scores on average but higher scores for unnecessary silence compared to cisgender women across encounters. Detracting behaviors that negatively impacted the patient encounters were most likely to be self-touching/unpurposive movements (41%) and unnecessary silences (26%). Among the students, cisgender men demonstrated detracting behaviors at a higher rate than cisgender women. The consistency in nonverbal behavior during encounters with cisgender and transgender patients is encouraging. It is possible that LGBTQ health training in medical education contributed to this outcome; however, differences in verbal communication could contribute more to health disparities for transgender patients. Additional practice with unpurposive movements and unnecessary silences could improve nonverbal communication skills.

DOI

10.18297/tce/vol1/iss1/14

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