Survey on experiences with health care access and use for people on the asexual spectrum

[ithaca]

Hey all,

 

@michaeld and I are looking into the possibility of organising a workshop in the UK with health professionals who are interested in learning more about the experiences of ace people (and people on the ace spectrum, including gray-A and demisexuals) accessing and using health services, including mental health services. Before we start looking for volunteers and organise things more in details, we thought it'd be good to collect some testimonies through a survey, to get an idea of current/recent experiences (within the last 5 years).

 

Replies from UK NHS users especially welcome, but anyone can answer, of course. We will be closing this survey in 2 weeks.

 

Please be mindful of the fact that all answers will be anonymous and might be quoted in the future workshops as examples of asexual people's experiences with health services.

 

Follow this link to answer the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfCVUhelRGIo-bqmuRTeriyoHNG9ieUtXnIc5exm4guRHEj0A/viewform?usp=sf_link

 

Thank you all!

[ithaca]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far, 32 responses already! Please do keep replying, this will be SO useful! My partner works in mental health and is the one who thought of organising a workshop for health professionals on asexuality, after participating to one about LGBT experiences where asexuality wasn't mentioned. She is SO excited and so impressed that there are so many replies already.

[Lucas Monteiro]

I did too the survey and I feel the same way as @yyy some questions I couldn't answer, but most of them were really good questions. It's good to know that your partner is so excited to try to organize a workshop about asexuality because we don't see that everyday. I hope that everything works out for the best, and I send my appreciation and hugs to every asexual on UK.

[squaggly]

I have had no limitations from healthcare. No problems have arisen from my sexuality. I could see why this would be a question for gay or trans people, but not for asexuals. There might be some people who feel limited, but I don't think that's very common

[AFlyingPiglet]

Have completed the survey .... I like doing surveys!!  

[Skycaptain]

Done

[VictorianVictoria]

10 hours ago, AFlyingPiglet said:

Have completed the survey .... I like doing surveys!!  

Me too! 🤣

[Dancer23]

I am really pleased to hear about this workshop! The results from the CATA study were promising but I suspect biased, so it's always good to keep raising awareness. Once you're ready, drop me a private message if you'd like me to spread the word about the workshop amongst my fellow trainee therapists but also no worries if you have already got lots of promotion ideas.

[ithaca]

On 01/03/2018 at 9:22 PM, Dancer23 said:

I am really pleased to hear about this workshop! The results from the CATA study were promising but I suspect biased, so it's always good to keep raising awareness. Once you're ready, drop me a private message if you'd like me to spread the word about the workshop amongst my fellow trainee therapists but also no worries if you have already got lots of promotion ideas.

I'd like to hear more about the CATA study, and please do message me, I'll keep you posted about when this workshop will take place.

 

Thank you everyone who has replied so far. We have 69 replies already, that's amazing! Looking forward to seeing more!

[Dancer23]

1 hour ago, ithaca said:

I'd like to hear more about the CATA study, and please do message me, I'll keep you posted about when this workshop will take place.

The CATA (Clinician Attitudes Towards Asexuality) is a UK-based study that looked at how therapists and psychologists view asexuality. The results were promising (indicated low levels of prejudice towards asexuality) but the sample was small and I suspect because of the way the survey and facebook page were branded with the asexual flag/colours and because I (rightly or wrongly) think clinicians who are ace-friendly would be more likely to encourage other clinicians to participate (and also probably more likely to be willing to educate other clinicians), clinicians who held non-discriminatory views of asexuality were more likely to participate. I remember thinking while doing the survey that if I wasn't confident on what asexuality is I'm not sure I'd have taken part. Of course, I could be being unnecessarily critical but that was my thinking.

There's a summary of the results on their facebook page: 

I also wanted to check; did you also want responses to your survey from aces who work for health services? As staff also have experiences as patients but their experiences may be coloured by their experiences of working for the organisations involved? I wasn't sure if that would make things more complicated when it comes to making sense of the responses? No problem either way but wanted to check  

[deackie]

Hi. I'm a registered nurse and lecturer in Adult Nursing in the UK. Please do let me know more information about this event. I'd be really interested in attending /supporting if I can. 

[ithaca]

Thank you everyone. I reminder that the survey will close tomorrow, so if you'd like your answers in, now is a good time