Stress and social support networks among lesbian and heterosexual women: A comparison study

Abstract

Twenty‐nine lesbian/gay women and seventy‐seven heterosexual women from North Carolina completed a quantitative survey on stress and social support. The purpose of this descriptive study was to compare stress levels of lesbians and heterosexual women in order to determine whether or not lesbians experience a higher level of stress and if so, the effects that social support has on stress levels. Findings showed that the stress levels were similar between the two groups and that factors such as SES profiles may be more important in impacting stress than sexual identification.

Notes

The author is a social worker with the Pitt County AIDS Service Organization (PICASO), Greenville, NC. This article was presented in a paper‐presentation session at the First Annual Conference of the Association for Women in Psychology, Southern Regional Chapter, October 1994, Hilton Head, South Carolina.