MINORITY STRESS, COMMUNITY CONNECTEDNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH: A STUDY OF LESBIAN, GAY AND BISEXUAL YOUNG ADULTS (LGB) IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals are at heightened risk of mental health problems and a common explanation for this is the concept of minority stress (Meyer, 1995). Specifically, sexual minority individuals face unique stressors (i.e., discrimination, rejection) arising from their minority identities, and this put them at greater vulnerability for poor mental health. However, few studies have gone beyond to explicate the potential moderating effects of protective factors such as community connectedness. Most studies also do not distinguish overt forms of discrimination from its relatively subtle form of microaggression. A majority of minority stress research also tends to herald from the West, with none conducted in Singapore. Consequently, this study sought to address these gaps by examining the association between minority stress and psychological distress in a sample of 469 self-identified LGB young adults in Singapore. In addition, it aims to examine the extent to which community connectedness moderates the influence of specific stressors – namely, discrimination events, microaggression, internalised homophobia, on psychological distress. Results from multivariate regression analyses found that minority stress was significantly associated with higher levels of psychological distress, with microaggression having the largest effect. Findings are consistent with the minority stress model and other relevant work. While community connectedness was found to significantly moderate the effects of microaggression on psychological distress, this was not the case for discrimination events and internalised homophobia. Findings from this study contribute to the relative scarce research on LGB mental health in Singapore, and has important implications for social work practice.