Primary care providers can oversee potential medical management, connect families with support
TUESDAY, Jan. 22, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Primary care providers are well positioned to provide critical support and personalized care for youth with gender dysphoria and their caregivers or families, according to a review published online Jan. 21 in CMAJ, the journal of the Canadian Medical Association.
Joseph H. Bonifacio, M.D., M.P.H., from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and colleagues conducted a literature review and examined articles to provide an overview of the management of gender dysphoria in postpubertal adolescents. The overview includes practical advice on approaches to social and medical transitioning to support primary care practitioners seeing youth with gender dysphoria in their practices.
The authors recommend that primary care providers provide guidance on the timing of social transitioning, review and oversee the potential use of medical management, and connect families of youth with gender dysphoria to local community resources and supports. Further, hormonal suppression can delay puberty and give youth and their families more time to make decisions about transitioning.
“An increasing number of adolescents seeking care for gender dysphoria suggests that more primary care providers will encounter such youth in clinical practice and should be familiar with the key aspects of their management,” the authors write.
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