The increased risks for isolation, victimization, and other adverse behaviors for GLB persons are substantiated in the literature. Yet awareness of the struggles by those coming to terms with their alternative sexual identity is limited. The “self comfort” can be used to describe the desired state of those who have been successful in this adjustment process. This research centers on clarifying, defining, and exploring the measurement potential of an instrument based on the construct self-comfort. As a holistic construct, self-comfort is realized in physical, psychospiritual, sociocultural-political, and environmental contexts. As a dynamic construct, self-comfort is sensitive to change over time, given effective and repetitive nursing interventions. The attributes of the construct are autonomy, identity, relationship, and transcendence. When the attributes and contexts are juxtaposed, a 16-cell grid (taxonomic structure) is created to describe the content domain and guide the creation of the new instrument.
This study focused on testing the instrument with 245 gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons. The internal consistency reliability for the 44 item Self-Comfort with Sexual Identity Questionnaire (SSIQ) was .917 (standardized). Ninety- three respondents (41.3%) were men and 132 (58.7%) women. Seventy-four (30%) individuals self-identified as being gay; 73 (29.8%) as lesbian; 49 (20%) as bisexual; and 17 (6.9%) were undeclared.
Study data met the factorability criteria described by the Bartlett…#8482;s test of sphericity, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test (KMO), and Measures of sampling adequacy (MSA). A principal component analysis (PCA) method of extraction with a varimax rotation was completed. The number of factors was set at four to remain consistent with the theoretical framework for the study. Factors were extracted in 6 iterations with factor loadings <.40 being suppressed. Using the guidelines for item-to factor loadings in an orthogonal solution, loadings between .45 (20% of the shared variance) and .71 (50% of the shared variance) represented fair to excellent theoretical fit. Many of the 44 items contained in the taxonomic structure displayed strong factor loadings.
As a desirable outcome or state, The SSIQ can assist nurses and other health professionals in understanding and facilitating positive human behaviors as well as more just social policies.