International Journal of Nursing

Access to Health Care by Minorities: Men who establish Homoaffective Relationships
Celso Pasadas, Francisca Manso

Abstract
Context: Access to adequate and competente healthcare is a fundamental and universal right for all people and must be enjoyed without any kind of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, age, gender or any other condition. Objective: to critically evaluate the results of the studies on access to health care by sexual minorities, namely homosexuals or homoaffectives. Method: Integrative review based on the search for full-text articles written in English or Portuguese in the data base of the Academic Search Complete, CINAHL Complete, PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Clinical Answer database, ERIC, MedicLatina, MEDLINE Complete, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection and SciELO. Studies were evaluated according to predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: From a total of 447 studies/articles from the last ten years 284 were selected; of these, 17 articles fulfilled all the inclusion criteria with content relevant to the theme. Conclusion: The results of the articles found at national and international level highlight factors related to the organization of services and negative discriminatory attitudes by professionals towards sexual minorities in accessing services. It is essential to continue to educate and sensitize health professionals to the specific health needs of these minorities, promoting competence and cultural sensitivity.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijn.v9n1a2