Guardian Reasons for Accessing Their Transgender and Gender-Diverse Adolescent's Patient Portal Account

Purpose: To understand if and why guardians access their adolescent child's electronic health record patient portal account.

Methods: Guardians of transgender and gender-diverse adolescents completed a survey regarding patient portal use. Descriptive statistics were used to describe items related to guardian access to adolescent portal accounts.

Results: Of 82 respondents, 37.8% indicated they had used their child's login to access the patient portal. Most indicated they accessed their adolescent's account because their child asked them to do so. Other common reasons included being worried they might miss important health information and not realizing there was a difference between patient and proxy accounts.

Discussion: Results of this study provide a more detailed understanding regarding guardian access to adolescent patient portals. Findings can be used to inform adolescent patient portal design and enrollment practices that protect adolescent confidentiality.