Diverse Well-Being Profiles of LGBTQ College Students and Multi-Level Covariates

Background & Purpose

Research suggests that discrimination, including everyday microaggressions can contribute to poor psychological well-being among LGBTQ individuals, including college students. Though important research, these studies provide partial understanding of students’ experiences as they often only focus on negative outcomes, such as distress, and overlook positive ones, for example self-esteem. Additionally, these studies neglect multi-level factors that may produce differential well-being outcomes among students.

Effective treatment and prevention interventions rely on a holistic understanding of the person and their context. Therefore, in this study we simultaneously examine indicators of positive and negative psychological well-being and microaggressions, and how together, they may produce diverse student profiles. Further, we examine the individual- and institutional-level factors associated with different well-being profiles.

Methods

A convenience sample of LGBTQ college students (n=406) completed an anonymous survey. Participants were recruited via online LGBTQ networks. Interpersonal and environmental microaggressions were measured using scales specific to sexual minority and transgender student populations. Well-being measures included suicidal ideation, anxiety (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006), perceived stress (Cohen et al., 1983), internalized LGBTQ stigma, and self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). Individual-level factors included age, gender identity, and race.

Participants reported their college’s name, from which the researchers assessed the existence of 11 LGBTQ policies (e.g., anti-discrimination policy, name of choice, gender transition health insurance), student resources (e.g., safe-space, ally training, support groups) and educational programming (e.g., for-credit LGBTQ courses) based on website review/contact with institutions.

After exploratory analysis, we conducted latent profile analysis using Mplus and identified the factors associated with each profile using the BCH and DCAT subcommand.

Results

Three latent profiles were produced: 1) low microaggressions and high well-being (n=157); 2) moderate microaggressions and well-being, but high internalized stigma (n=168); and 3) high microaggression and low well-being (n=81).

Examining the role of socio-demographic and LGBTQ institutional factors, we find that students in Profile 1, compared to those in Profile 3, were more likely to attend institutions with name of choice policy, insurance plans inclusive of gender transition, and LGBTQ for-credit courses. Students in Profile 3 compared to those in the other profiles were more likely to be younger, and they were more likely to be transgender or gender-queer compared to Profile 1. Race was not related to the profiles.

Conclusions and Implications

Informing social work practice, our findings suggest that interventions to promote LGBTQ students’ well-being need to attend to the specificities of different subgroups of students, such as the need for additional supports for transgender and gender-queer students given their profile was found to be the most vulnerable. The findings also highlight the value of particular LGBTQ-inclusive structural interventions at the campus-level in reducing microaggressions and fostering positive well-being among students. Specific recommendations for clinical and macro practice, as well as future research will be discussed.