COVID-19 Pandemic: Differences in Stress and Resilience Levels based on Gender and Sexual Orientation.

Abstract

Generous escalations of scholarly attention surrounding the LGBTQ+ community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic were fathomed (Salerno et al., 2020). Contrastingly, low investigations of their stress and resilience levels during COVID-19 inspired empirical responsiveness (UN News, 2020). Hence, this study explored the differences in stress and resilience among populations based on gender and sexual orientation. With a cross-cultural, quantitative, multifactorial, between-groups experimental design, this study recruited (N=776) participants from various countries, including Ireland, The United States, The Netherlands, and Germany. This study generated significant results, reported that bisexuals have higher stress levels and lower resilience levels than their homosexual and heterosexual counterparts. Whereas concerning gender, transgender individuals reported higher stress levels and lower resilience levels than their cisgender counterparts. These results also gave rise to significant interacting effects between gender and sexual orientation on resilience and stress, which suggested that an individuals’ sexuality may influence stress and resilience levels. This study’s results advanced opportunities for future research, theoretical and practical implications such as; incorporating ethnicity as a variable while further recommendations are delineated.