Development and validation of a brief measure of resilience among young gay and bisexual males

Introduction: Research on young gay and bisexual males has increasingly focused on resilience as a protective factor for health and well-being among this population. Our exploratory study was intended to move assessment of resilience beyond individually-focused traits and assess resilience and as an outgrowth of identity development involving individual, dyadic, and societal factors. Methods: Items were developed from qualitative data gathered from young gay and bisexual males in two previous NIH-funded multi-site studies. We surveyed a racially diverse sample of 200 young gay and bisexual males in Chicago. Analysis was conducted in the following steps: (1) principal component analysis (PCA) to empirically determine the items that best fit a brief measure of resilience; (2) reliability analysis; and (3) bivariate and multivariate analysis of our resilience scale with various demographic variables and attitudinal variables. Results: PCA resulted in 10 indicators loading on two components that comprised 51% of the total variance. The resilience measure (α=.79) was positively correlated with social support from friends and family, and gay identity, and negatively correlated with internalized homophobia, depressive symptoms, and bisexual identity. Multivariate analysis results demonstrated a significant negative association with internalization of gay-related stigma (β=-.28, p<.001) and significant positive association with social support from friends (β=.23, p<.01) and gay identity (β=.21, p<.01). Conclusions: The 10-item multidimensional measure of resilience demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability and correlated with other attitudinal measures. Multivariate results indicating that the scale measures an underlying construct of gay identity-oriented resilience that may not extend to young bisexual males.