Anderson, Joel R. and Hinton, Jordan D. X. and Worrell, Shane and Pepping, Christopher A. and Waling, Andrea and Fairchild, Jackson and Bourne, Adam (2025) Predictors of burnout and resilience in individuals offering peer support within the LGBTQ+ community. Psychology and Sexuality. ISSN 1941-9899
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
LGBTQ+ individuals often turn to each other for support in coping with mental health issues. This peer-support is often needed because dedicated LGBTQ+ organisations are under-resourced and in great demand, and often LGBTQ+ people avoid mainstream health services. This study examined factors that predict burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion and cynicism) and resilience (i.e. capacity to bounce back from stressful events) among LGBTQ+ peer support providers. A sample of 307 sexual and gender minority individuals in metropolitan Melbourne who provide mental health-related peer support completed measures of demographic characteristics, peer support experience, well-being (i.e. mental health, affect, and life satisfaction), and burnout and resilience. The results revealed that cisgender (vs gender diverse) participants and gay men (vs other sexuality groups) reported higher levels of resilience than their counterparts. The well-being scores of peer support providers (i.e. mental health, affect, and life satisfaction) were good predictors of both burnout and resilience (moderate-to-strong effects), while their levels of experience were weaker predictors (i.e. qualifications and self-reported competence weakly predicted resilience; none predicted burnout). These results have implications for supporting LGBTQ+ peers providing mental health support through training, supervision, and strengths-based interventions to enhance resilience and prevent burnout.