LGBTQ+ Cultural-Competence Training Effectiveness: Mental Health Organization and Therapist Survey Outcome Results from a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Clin Psychol Psychother
• Personal Author:
  Boekeloo, Bradley ; Fish, Jessica ; Turpin, Rodman ; Aparicio, Elizabeth M. ; Shin, Richard ; Vigorito, Michael A. ; Lare, Sean M. ; McGraw, James S. ; King-Marshall, Evelyn
• Description:
  Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and other sexual and gender diverse (LGBTQ+) persons frequently lack access to mental health service organizations (MHOs) and therapists who are competent with LGBTQ+ clients. Existing continuing education programmes to better equip therapists to work with LGBTQ+ clients are often not widely accessible or skills focused, evaluated for effectiveness and inclusive of MHO administrators who can address the organizational climate needed for therapist effectiveness. A virtual, face-to-face, multi-level (administrators and therapists) and multi-strategy (technical assistance, workshop and clinical consultations) LGBTQ+ cultural competence training-the Sexual and Gender Diversity Learning Community (SGDLC)-was tested in a pilot randomized controlled trial. Ten organizations were randomly assigned to the intervention (SGDLC plus free online videos) or control (free online videos only) group. Pretest/posttest Organization LGBTQ+ Climate Surveys (n = 10 MHOs) and pretest/posttest Therapist LGBTQ+ Competence Self-Assessments (n = 48 therapists) were administered. Results showed that at pretest, average ratings across organization LGBTQ+ climate survey items were low; twice as many items improved on average in the intervention (10/18 items) than control (5/18 items) group organizations. At pretest, therapist average scores (range 0-1) were highest for knowledge (0.88), followed by affirmative attitudes (0.81), practice self-efficacy (0.81), affirmative practices (0.75) and commitment to continued learning (0.69). Pretest/posttest change scores were higher for the intervention relative to the control group regarding therapist self-reported affirmative attitudes (cumulative ordinal ratio [OR] = 3.29; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.73, 6.26), practice self-efficacy (OR = 5.28, 95% CI = 2.00, 13.93) and affirmative practices (OR = 3.12, 95% CI = 1.18, 8.25). Average therapist and administrator satisfaction scores were high for the SGDLC. These findings suggest the SGDLC training can affect organizational- and therapist-level changes that may benefit LGBTQ+ clients.
• Keywords:
  Cultural Competence LGBTQ Mental Health Mental Healthcare Randomized Controlled Trial Sexual And Gender Minority Therapist Training
• Source:
  Clin Psychol Psychother.
• Pubmed ID:
  37622344
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC11278726
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  U48 DP006382/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHSUnited States/ ; U48DP006382/CC/CDC HHSUnited States/
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:2ce6bca28b799ccc2b1b11c4c6c928a62053b692e12f330c958fa30cffd668ed2623d440c71f5b8b19516f216250900b373c2b74bec70a6cf9af9b62b3c00317
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/159429/cdc_159429_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.18 MB ]