DEVELOPMENT OF A QUESTIONNAIRE TO ASSESS THE PERCEPTION OF DENTISTS TOWARDS TRANSGENDER PATIENTS

Abstract

Background Transgender community faces immense amount of adversities including less acceptance from family and
friends, lack of employment opportunities, verbal and physical abuse, isolation and rejection. A lack of knowledge
about the biology and health needs of transgender community and a generalized aversive attitude against them are a
few reasons for this discrimination. In spite of their increased health needs, they face discrimination from health care
professionals including dentists. Objectives Currently, there are no psychosocial tool for examining the knowledge,
attitude, and perceptions of dentists towards transgender patients. Accordingly, a tool was developed and tested to
provide an instrument for measuring the same. Methods A thorough literature review and expert panel analysis of the
questions was done followed by pretesting of the tool. The responses were marked on a likert scale .Reliability and factor
analysis were performed using SPSS software. Results The final factor analysis loaded as two factors with nine items
which were defined as emotional and cognitive perception. The present item pool was named as dentist perception
questionnaire which can be used to assess the perception of dentists towards transgender patients. Conclusions
Although further testing and refinement is needed, this survey instrument provides an initial and conceptually unique
tool for assessing the knowledge, attitude and perception of dentists towards transgender patients.