Disclosure Stress,Social Support,and Depressive Symptoms Among Cisgender Bisexual Youth

Bisexual youth are at elevated risk for depression when compared with lesbians and gay men. Research on bisexual stigma suggests that these youth are uniquely vulnerable to stress related to sexual identity disclosure. Depression associated with this stress may be buffered by social support from parents and friends. We examined the differential influence of social support from parents and friends (Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale) on the relation between disclosure stress (LGBTQ Coming Out Stress Scale) and depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory) and differences by gender in a sample of cisgender bisexual youth (N = 383) using structural equation modeling. Parental support buffered the association between stressful disclosure to family and depressive symptoms, especially for bisexual men; bisexual women seemed not to benefit from such support when disclosure stress was high. This nuanced examination elucidates the ways family members and clinicians can best support bisexual youth sexual identity disclosure.     

Legal Marriage,Unequal Recognition,and Mental Health Among Same‐Sex Couples

The authors examined whether the perception of unequal relationship recognition ‐ a novel couple‐level minority stressor ‐ has negative consequences for mental health among same‐sex couples. Data were analyzed from a dyadic study of 100 same‐sex couples (200 individuals) in the United States. Being in a legal marriage was associated with lower perceived unequal recognition and better mental health; being in a registered domestic partnership or civil union—but not also legally married—was associated with greater perceived unequal recognition and worse mental health. Actor partner interdependence models tested associations between legal relationship status, unequal relationship recognition, and mental health (nonspecific psychological distress, depressive symptomatology, and problematic drinking), net controls (age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, and income). Unequal recognition was consistently associated with worse mental health, independent of legal relationship status. Legal changes affecting relationship recognition should not be seen as simple remedies for addressing the mental health effects of institutionalized discrimination.     

Resiliency in the Aftermath of Repetitious Violence in the Workplace

Summary

The definition and occurrence of traumatic events is expanding and impacts everyone's lives in some way. The degree to which a violent event impacts an individual, a group, a workplace or the community varies. Unfortunately violent events are all too common. Businesses are realizing the significance of violence as a workplace problem and the varying degrees of trauma that has a devastating impact on employee retention, workplace functionality and personal well-being. The events can include industrial or natural disasters; worksite accidents; organizational changes; suicide; homicides; robbery; assault; threats of violence and even terrorism. How prepared an organization is varies and may be correlated with how resilient individuals and the entire workplace are after workplace violence/trauma. This article focuses on what workplace violence and trauma includes, the effects of repeat events, how resilient people are while trying to prevent additional events if possible in the workplace.     

In Spite of All,We Make It: Themes of Stress and Resiliency as Told by Women in Families Living in Poverty

The purpose of this research study was to increase our understanding of how families living in poverty successfully meet life challenges. Family resiliency provided the theoretical framework for examining family coping and adaptation. This study used a purposive sample of women (N = 128) in families with children attending Head Start. All families lived below or at poverty level, most with 11th grade education or high-school/GED diploma. Content analysis methods were used for data analysis. Results of this study identify the characteristics that promote competence, including how individual, family, and environmental factors are potential stressors that also may serve to promote family resilience. The data indicate that family love and mutual support, as well as faith, help stressed families cope and maintain meaning in spite of lack of control over life circumstances resulting from economic poverty.     

What Is Valued in Gay and Lesbian Specific Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment?

Little is known about what gay and lesbian clients value about culturally specific alcohol and other drug treatment programs. This study involves a sample of clinical staff and former clients (N = 40) of four culturally specific alcohol and other drug treatment programs to clarify what is addressed and deemed valuable for the specific needs of gay and lesbian clients. Through the lens of the recovery capital conceptual framework, this qualitative research emphasizes resiliency and the supports necessary for long-term recovery. Results indicate three major themes that make this type of treatment valuable: (1) a separate treatment unit or facility, (2) a safe and supportive therapeutic milieu, and (3) specific tailored treatment approaches. Findings are discussed to include implications for ways to improve services for this all too often understudied population of potentially vulnerable individuals who can benefit from culturally sensitive care.     

Divorce and the Divine: The Role of Spirituality in Adjustment to Divorce

This study examined the role of three spiritual responses to divorce for psychological adjustment: appraising the event as a sacred loss/desecration, engaging in adaptive spiritual coping, and experiencing spiritual struggles. A sample of 100 adults (55% female) was recruited through public divorce records. Most appraised their divorce as a sacred loss/desecration (74%), experienced spiritual struggles (78%), and engaged in adaptive spiritual coping (88%). Appraisals of sacred loss/desecration and spiritual struggles were tied to higher levels of depression. Adaptive spiritual coping was tied to greater posttraumatic growth. Spiritual coping and struggles each contributed uniquely to adjustment beyond parallel forms of nonspiritual coping and struggles and mediated links between viewing the divorce as a sacred loss/desecration and depression.     

Minority Stress and Stress Proliferation Among Same‐Sex and Other Marginalized Couples

Drawing from 2 largely isolated approaches to the study of social stress—stress proliferation and minority stress—the authors theorize about stress and mental health among same‐sex couples. With this integrated stress framework, they hypothesized that couple‐level minority stressors may be experienced by individual partners and jointly by couples as a result of the stigmatized status of their same‐sex relationship—a novel concept. They also consider dyadic minority stress processes, which result from the relational experience of individual‐level minority stressors between partners. Because this framework includes stressors emanating from both status‐based (e.g., sexual minority) and role‐based (e.g., partner) stress domains, it facilitates the study of stress proliferation linking minority stress (e.g., discrimination), more commonly experienced relational stress (e.g., conflict), and mental health. This framework can be applied to the study of stress and health among other marginalized couples, such as interracial/ethnic, interfaith, and age‐discrepant couples.     

Spatial Risk Analysis of Power Systems Resilience During Extreme Events

The increased frequency of extreme events in recent years highlights the emerging need for the development of methods that could contribute to the mitigation of the impact of such events on critical infrastructures, as well as boost their resilience against them. This article proposes an online spatial risk analysis capable of providing an indication of the evolving risk of power systems regions subject to extreme events. A Severity Risk Index (SRI) with the support of real‐time monitoring assesses the impact of the extreme events on the power system resilience, with application to the effect of windstorms on transmission networks. The index considers the spatial and temporal evolution of the extreme event, system operating conditions, and the degraded system performance during the event. SRI is based on probabilistic risk by condensing the probability and impact of possible failure scenarios while the event is spatially moving across a power system. Due to the large number of possible failures during an extreme event, a scenario generation and reduction algorithm is applied in order to reduce the computation time. SRI provides the operator with a probabilistic assessment that could lead to effective resilience‐based decisions for risk mitigation. The IEEE 24‐bus Reliability Test System has been used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed online risk analysis, which was embedded in a sequential Monte Carlo simulation for capturing the spatiotemporal effects of extreme events and evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Arriving old: A qualitative study of elder refugee women’s self-perceptions of the first year of resettlement

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examines eight elder women’s experiences of resettling with their family and the protective factors that enhanced their resiliency. The implications for social work include the need to assess elder refugees’ strengths, resilience, pre-resettlement functioning instead of services that might encourage integration into the dominant culture and community, and that the refugee experience is a lifelong experience that shapes and informs various stages of life.     

A Profile of Adolescent Health

SUMMARY

As the adolescent population living in this country undergoes dramatic demographic changes in the 21st Century, increasing both in numbers and ethnic/racial diversity, practitioners and policy makers need to understand the prevalence of and trends in adolescent risk-taking behaviors, morbidity and mortality. Significant disparities in health status exist by ethnicity/race and gender in areas including: unintentional injury, violence, mental health, substance use, sexual behavior, and disease prevention. The epidemiological profile can help mobilize communities to address adolescent health issues. Developing effective interventions will require an ecological approach that builds on adolescents' assets and takes into account the contexts in which they live.