Actitudes homofóbicas de los estudiantes de tercero y cuarto ciclo de la Carrera de Medicina de la Universidad de Cuenca. 2023

Abstract

Homophobia has various ways and scenarios of presentation; therefore, it constitutes a problem that affects society in general. It is important to identify its existence within educational centers, in this case in university students, because it is considered a taboo subject, due to existing social prejudices in relation to sexual diversity. This study aims to identify homophobic attitudes in third and fourth cycle students of the Medicine Course at the University of Cuenca, 2023. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on third and fourth cycle students of the medical degree at the University of Cuenca, 2023. A scale called Homophobic Attitude Scale was applied, which consists of 10 items, the statistical analysis was carried out with EpiData 4.2, the results are shown in the relevant tables. A frequency of homophobic attitude was found to be 87.3%, the average age was 20 years, 75.45% were women and 74.55% of people who identified as female presented a homophobic attitude. The 90.91% of the students who presented homophobic attitudes think that social prejudices can be a cause of homophobia. A high prevalence of homophobic attitudes was found in the participating students, it was also found that the main causes of homophobia were social prejudices, the education they received at home and the lack of education in sexual diversity, in a lower percentage associated with religious beliefs and experiences with homosexuals.