Measuring sexual minority stressors in lesbian women’s daily lives: Initial scale development.

Abstract

Lesbian women face unique sexual minority stressors (SMS) due to their stigmatized and marginalized status in society. Existing studies of SMS are primarily cross-sectional and use global measures of SMS. The goal of the present study was to develop a brief daily measure of SMS for use in daily diary or ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies. Existing retrospective measures of SMS were reviewed, resulting in an initial pool of 29 items. Thirty-eight lesbian women (age=24.3 years, range: 19-30 years) completed a daily web-based survey including the SMS items for 12 days. Two response scales were tested; participants were randomized to receive a 3-point (for brevity) or 7-point (for precision) scale for the first 6 days and the other response scale for the remaining 6 days to counterbalance order. Findings suggest the 7-point scale was optimal because it provided greater variability. To reduce scale length, item correlations were examined to identify clusters and one item was retained from each cluster, reducing the scale to 18 items. Then, using HLM, null models with each item as the outcome were conducted to examine level-1 and level-2 variances; 8-, 10-, 12-, and 18-item scales were compared to identify the ideal number of items. The 8-item scale had the highest Cronbach's alpha (.85) and the smallest intraclass correlation (ICC; .13), suggesting these 8 items are optimal for capturing within-person variability in young lesbian women's daily SMS experiences. As researchers are increasingly interested in using EMA methods, this 8-item measure can assess SMS in lesbian women's everyday lives.

Minority stress and alcohol use in sexual minority women’s daily lives.

“…Daily sexual minority stressors were assessed with an 8-item measure, the Daily Sexual Minority Stressors Scale (DSMSS; Heron et al, 2018). Participants were asked, "For each of the following statements, rate how much this experience describes something that happened to you yesterday because you identify as a sexual minority woman," with response options ranging from not at all (0) to very much (6).…”

Rationale and Design of a Remote Web-Based Daily Diary Study Examining Sexual Minority Stress, Relationship Factors, and Alcohol Use in Same-Sex Female Couples Across the United States: Study Protocol of Project Relate

“…In Table 2, we provide a description of where we adapted measures from, based on either previous daily diary research with heterosexual couples or from existing retrospective measures. Importantly for Project Relate, we were unable to identify a measure of sexual minority stress that was appropriate for daily administration and, thus, created a daily sexual minority stressor measure [41] to use in this study. The lack of validated measures that are appropriate for daily or EMA studies highlights the importance for future work in this area to create new measures.…”

“…Each person in the couple is sent separate automated emails through the Qualtrics survey system, with an individual link to their brief daily survey each morning at 6:00 am for the following 14 days. We selected a 14-day assessment period based on research demonstrating daily sexual minority stressors [40,41] and alcohol use [17,42] occur over this length of time as well as our screening criteria requiring binge drinking (in at least 1 partner) during the previous 2 weeks. Thus, using a 14-day daily assessment period should appropriately balance both participants’ burdens while ensuring the study is of sufficient duration to capture the experiences and behaviors of interest in daily life.…”

Effects of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization for Sexual Minority Men in Taiwan: Findings From a Prospective Study

“…Distal sexual minority stress. Respondents’ experience of distal sexual minority stress was measured by the Daily Sexual Minority Stressors Scale developed by Heron, Braitman [ 29 ]. Although the scale was originally developed for lesbian women, the questions were considered suitable for sexual minority men because they were adapted from existing measures that have been used for this population, including the Daily Heterosexist Experience Questionnaire [ 30 ]; the Heterosexist Harassment, Rejection, and Discrimination Scale [ 31 ]; and the Sexual Orientation Micro-aggression Scale [ 32 ].…”