Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Bruce, Australia.
College of Health and Medicine, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
J Clin Psychol. 2022 Nov;78(11):2145-2163. doi: 10.1002/jclp.23434. Epub 2022 Aug 17.
Sexual minorities experience higher rates of psychological distress than heterosexual people, likely due to minority stress. While rates of help-seeking by sexual minorities are high, sexual minorities report greater dissatisfaction with mental health service providers. This dissatisfaction may result from poor cultural competence practices. Our study sought to determine the importance of service provider cultural competence practices to a community sample of sexual minority people.
Participants (n = 274) were sexual minority Australians recruited from affirming Facebook groups, organizations, and research-based organizations. To measure the importance of cultural competence practices, participants completed a modified online version of the Gay Affirming Practices Scale (GAP) and responded to open-ended questions.
Between 80% and 99% of participants endorsed each item on the GAP, indicating the importance of service providers demonstrating an array of culturally affirming practices. No significant associations were found between overall GAP score and age or sexual orientation, though further analyses revealed individual items on the GAP showed associations with age. A structured tabular thematic analysis, of open-ended participant responses, found positive attitudes, knowledge, and affirming practices were the three most important characteristics for service providers seeking to demonstrate culturally competent practices, mirroring the tripartite model (attitudes, knowledge, and skills) of cultural competence.
Recommendations for service providers to demonstrate cultural competence include: utilizing affirming practices such as inclusive language, increasing knowledge about sexual minorities, and utilizing education resources such as cultural competence workshops, lived experience stories, and seeking mentorship from service providers with expertise in working with sexual minorities.
性少数群体经历更高的心理困扰比异性恋者，可能是由于少数群体的压力。虽然性少数群体寻求帮助的比例很高，但他们对心理健康服务提供者的满意度较低。这种不满可能是由于较差的文化能力实践。我们的研究旨在确定服务提供者文化能力实践对性少数群体社区样本的重要性。
参与者（n=274）是从肯定的 Facebook 团体、组织和基于研究的组织招募的澳大利亚性少数群体。为了衡量文化能力实践的重要性，参与者完成了 Gay Affirming Practices Scale（GAP）的修改版在线版本，并回答了开放式问题。
80%到 99%的参与者在 GAP 上对每个项目表示赞同，这表明服务提供者表现出一系列文化肯定的实践非常重要。GAP 的总体得分与年龄或性取向之间没有显著关联，但进一步的分析表明，GAP 上的个别项目与年龄有关。对参与者开放式回答的结构化表格主题分析发现，积极的态度、知识和肯定的实践是服务提供者寻求表现出文化能力实践的三个最重要的特征，与文化能力的三分模型（态度、知识和技能）相呼应。
为服务提供者提供文化能力的建议包括：采用肯定的实践，如包容性语言，增加对性少数群体的了解，并利用教育资源，如文化能力工作坊、生活经验故事，并寻求在与性少数群体合作方面具有专业知识的服务提供者的指导。
