Comfort among older lesbian and gay people in disclosing their sexual orientation to health and aged care services

Lyons, Anthony; Alba, Beatrice; Waling, Andrea; Minichiello, Victor; Hughes, M; Barrett, Catherine; Fredriksen-Goldsen, K; Edmonds, S; Pepping, Christopher

doi:10.26181/6059349493a13

Lyons et al 2021 - Journal of Applied Gerontology - Author Accepted Version.pdf (323.11 kB)

Comfort among older lesbian and gay people in disclosing their sexual orientation to health and aged care services

journal contribution

posted on 2021-03-23, 00:21 authored by Anthony LyonsAnthony Lyons, Beatrice AlbaBeatrice Alba, Andrea WalingAndrea Waling, Victor Minichiello, M Hughes, Catherine Barrett, K Fredriksen-Goldsen, S Edmonds, Christopher PeppingChristopher Pepping

© The Author(s) 2020. Being comfortable in disclosing one’s sexual orientation to health and aged care providers is important for older lesbian and gay adults, given that nondisclosure is associated with poorer health and well-being outcomes. In a sample of 752 lesbian and gay adults aged 60 years and older living in Australia, we found only 51% of lesbian women and 64% of gay men felt fully comfortable to disclose their sexual orientation to health and aged care service providers. For both the women and the men, those who felt fully comfortable to disclose reported significantly less internalized homophobia; had fewer experiences of discrimination in the past year; and reported greater lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community connectedness. Feeling fully comfortable was also predicted by fewer experiences of lifetime discrimination among the men. These findings may help those seeking to assist older lesbian and gay people in feeling comfortable and being open with health and aged care service providers.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (Grant No. LP160100221).

History

Publication Date

2021-02-01

Journal

Journal of Applied Gerontology

Volume

40

Issue

2

Article Number

ARTN 0733464820925330

Pagination

10p.

Publisher

SAGE

ISSN

0733-4648

Rights Statement

The Author reserves all moral rights over the deposited text and must be credited if any re-use occurs. Documents deposited in OPAL are the Open Access versions of outputs published elsewhere. Changes resulting from the publishing process may therefore not be reflected in this document. The final published version may be obtained via the publisher’s DOI. Please note that additional copyright and access restrictions may apply to the published version.