STUDY: Your Doctor Is Likely to Be Biased Against LGBT People

There may be a justifiable reason why LGBT patients don't always feel comfortable when they visit their straight doctor's office.

New findings from research conducted by the University of Washington show that health care providers may in fact harbor biases against patients of opposing sexual orientations.

According to the abstract of the study published online Thursday by the American Journal of Public Health, "implicit preferences for heterosexual people versus lesbian and gay people are pervasive among heterosexual health care providers."

Straight women in the field were found to have weaker implicit preference than straight men, and among all of the surveyed health care professionals, straight nurses "held the strongest implicit preference for heterosexual men over gay men."

The researchers looked at results from the Implicit Association Test taken among a sample of more than 200,000 medical doctors, nurses, mental health providers, and other treatment providers as well as nonproviders from May 2006 to December 2012, according to the AJPH's abstract. The medical news website PsychCentralreported that users of the test were asked to respond to statements such as "I strongly prefer straight people to gay people" and "I strongly prefer gay people to straight people."

"We want all providers to be proficient in treating diverse populations," Dr. Janice Sabin, University of Washington professor and lead researcher on the study, told PsychCentral, "including the LGBT population."