Mental Health and Clinical Correlates in Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Queer Young Adults

Abstract

Objective: This study examined the prevalence of mental health disorders and their clinical correlates in a university sample of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) students. Participants: College students at a large public university. Methods: An anonymous, voluntary survey was distributed via random e-mail generation to university students during April and May of 2011. LGBQ students were compared with their heterosexual counterparts on psychological and physical status as well as academic performance. Results: LGBQ students reported worse depressive symptoms, higher levels of perceived stress, considered themselves less attractive, and were more likely to be overweight. LGBQ students were significantly more likely to report histories of affective, substance use, and certain anxiety disorders as well as compulsive sexual behavior and compulsive buying. Conclusions: The higher rates of many psychiatric conditions among LGBQ students underscore the need for universities to provide LGBQ students a nonjudgmental environment to discuss sexual orientation and health issues.     

Japanese Children's Reasoning about Conflicts with Parents

Ninety-five Japanese children (aged 6–12) were interviewed using hypothetical stories to examine their reasoning about parent–child conflicts. Participants were most likely to reject parental authority and to support child's discretion in conflict situations where the parent interfered in the child's personal choice and gave the child commands that violated moral and conventional principles. However, participants were most likely to accept parental authority when the child's wish conflicted with the parent's moral concern. Participants' reasoning was more varied when the child's wish went against the parent's conventional demand. Consistent with their cultural values, participants considered harmonious relationships in evaluating conventional and personal conflicts, but not moral conflicts. Age differences were observed in the endorsement of personal choice. Results suggest that children do not simply act upon their cultural values but also show resistance to parental authority for reasons beyond meeting selfish needs and form differentiated judgments about parent–child conflicts.     

Relational Aggression in Peer and Dating Relationships: Links to Psychological and Behavioral Adjustment

We examined the contribution of relational aggression in adolescents' peer and dating relationships to their psychological and behavioral adjustment. In the Fall and again four months later, 1279 (646 female) grade 9 students reported on relational aggression perpetration and victimization in their romantic and peer relationships, depression/anxiety symptoms (psychological adjustment) and delinquency (behavioral adjustment). Using hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for Time 1 adjustment/behavior, peer relational aggression perpetration predicted depression/anxiety. Dating relational victimization also predicted depression/anxiety, but only for girls. Furthermore, girls who were perpetrators of relational aggression in both peer and dating contexts were most likely to show increases in delinquent behavior. We conclude that dating and peer relationships are not redundant, but make independent and additive contributions to adolescent adjustment. Girls, in particular, may be at greatest risk for poor outcomes when they have relationally aggressive relationships. Results also highlight the need for greater awareness of the complexity and significance of adolescent dating relationships.     

Activating adult allies from a rural community on lesbian,gay, bisexual,transgender, and queer student issues in school using photovoice

Purpose: Many students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) face hostile school environments that can negatively impact their mental health and education. This study involved a photovoice project where high school students from a gay-straight alliance in the rural southeastern United States took photographs that depicted the issues LGBTQ students were facing and then exhibited their photographs and stories to individuals from the school system and local community to promote awareness, dialogue, and action. Methods: Twenty adults who attended the photovoice exhibit responded to an online survey about their experiences with the intervention. Results: Eighty-five percent of adults reported that the intervention made them think about issues they had not previously considered, including the struggles LGBTQ youths face, gender issues, and living in a rural community. Common emotions experienced at the intervention included feeling excited, concern for the youths, and proud of the youths. Furthermore, 81% of the adults indicated that they would take action or behave differently as a result of the intervention, including supporting and affirming LGBTQ students, using gender-neutral and -inclusive language, and confronting bias in themselves and others. Conclusions: Photovoice is a promising strategy for LGBTQ students to activate adult allies in their community.     

Palliative care patients' experiences of healthcare treatment

Kennett C, Payne M. Palliative care patients' experiences of healthcare treatment Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 262–271 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article reports on a thematic analysis of the opinions of 34 palliative care patients about medical and healthcare treatment expressed in comments, narratives and discussions during a series of facilitated group discussions undertaken as part of training events for medical students. Palliative care patients often have long healthcare careers, which enables them to compare different professionals and services, thus offering a more powerful and complex analysis of patient experience than that obtainable from analysis of complaints or satisfaction surveys, and permits some understanding to be obtained of the attitudes that condition evaluations of services. The patients balanced negative views with positive experiences. They appreciated open, listening, equal and friendly relationships with professionals in which careful explanation fostered their confidence in the overall service. They criticised inflexible services that did not consider their broad needs, and in which relationships with professionals were characterised by busy‐ness and professional distance.     

Counselor Trainees' Assessment and Diagnosis of Lesbian Clients with Dysthymic Disorder

SUMMARY

Graduate-level counselor trainees completed an Assessment and Diagnostic Inventory consisting of clinical vignettes and a series of questions pertaining to conceptualization of client problem, diagnosis, and assessment of overall level of psychopathology.We hypothesized that participants would assign different diagnoses to clients with lesbian versus heterosexual sexual orientation. Participants responded to vignettes in which clients were identified as either a lesbian or a heterosexual female, with all other content identical. Participants were significantly more likely to perceive lesbian clients' problems to be related to sexual orientation for the vignette corresponding to dysthymic disorder. However, they were not more likely to assign personality disorder diagnoses, nor did they attribute a greater degree of psychopathology to lesbian clients with dysthymic disorder.     

It Won't Change a Thing: The Meanings of Marriage in the Netherlands

The vast body of literature that highlights the increasing fragility of marriage fails to explore the effect of this fragility on the meanings people attach to marriage. During the last twenty-five to thirty years the instrumental and normative reasons for marriage—legal protection, societal support and enforcement, the social rejection of alternatives to marriage—have largely disappeared in the Netherlands. This study focuses on how young adults, raised after the most dramatic changes in marital practices took place, talk about the meanings of marriage in the context of building intimate relationships. In-depth interviews with fifteen heterosexual young adults (aged twenty-one to thirty) who were in a committed relationship showed that they talked about marriage in four different ways. They (1) minimized the meaning of marriage, (2) talked about the idea of marriage to ascertain commitment, (3) defined marriage as the ideal relationship, and/or (4) saw marriage as a jinx. Contradictions between these modes of talk revealed feelings of ambivalence and anxiety associated with a desire for commitment. The emotionally charged meanings associated with marriage anchored marriage in interviewees' imaginations, enabling the institution to retain its hold even though social pressures to marry are limited and legal substitutes to marriage exist.     

Male Couples and Their Relationship Styles

This article presents a classification system for understanding male couples in terms of how they bond and maintain a relationship. The various roles sex plays in the development and maintenance of a relationship are also examined, as is the important influence of AIDS. In order to be helpful to male couples, social workers need to be familiar with the diversity of relationship patterns in this group.