Using mental health screening instruments for understanding depression and personality profiles among Chinese transgender individuals

ABSTRACT

This study assessed the depression status of transgender individuals and their personality profiles for seeing the psychological functioning. We further compared their status with cisgender individuals and explored the role of personality profiles in explaining the variance of depression level among transgender and cisgender individuals. Seventy-one transgender individuals and seventy-three cisgender individuals were investigated in Shanghai Mental Health Centre. The general depression level and personality profiles of transgender individuals remained normative range, but percentages of transgender individuals who reported moderate or major symptoms and poor personality profiles were significantly higher than those of cisgender counterparts. Subscale scores of paranoia and psychopathic deviate significantly contributed to the variance of depression level among transgender people in multiple regression model. This study sheds light on the psychological needs of transgender people, which provided healthcare providers with the implications of developing psychological intervention programmes and mental health services.

本研究评估了跨性别者的抑郁状态, 并通过测量人格特征来看他们的心理功能。研究也对跨性别者与顺性别者的抑郁水平及心理功能进行比较, 以探究人格特征在解释两个群体抑郁水平变化中的作用。上海市精神卫生中心共计71名跨性别者和73名顺性恋者参与了此次调查。研究发现, 跨性别者人群的整体抑郁水平和人格特征在正常水平范围之内, 但是中重度抑郁症状和不良人格特征的跨性别人群占比显著高于顺性别对照组。在多元回归模型中, 妄想和病态分量表分数显著解释了跨性别者抑郁水平的变化。本研究对跨性别群体心理需求的探究, 能够为医疗服务者发展相关的心理干预项目提供启示。

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• psychological functioning
• personality profiles
• mental health screening
• Chinese transgender individuals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Shanghai Mental Health Centre under Grant [2018-YJ-17].