Empathy as a resilience factor in lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals: A scoping review

Abstract

Introduction: Much research has developed around higher prevalence rates of mental illness in the LGBTQ+ community with little work done on resilience factors, further stigmatizing this population. The present study facilitated a scoping review that charts scientific articles that looked at empathy as a potential resilience factor. The scoping review highlighted areas of concordance and discordance within the literature, reviewed strengths and weaknesses, and provided areas for further investigation.

Method: Online databases were used to identify papers published between 2010 and 2022, from which we selected three publications from the United States that conceptualized empathy as a resilience factor in lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals that were 18 or older. PRISMA’s guidelines for systematic reviews were used to create the protocol for this paper.

Results: All publications were cross sectional, used qualitative methods, and suggested that empathy was developed through identity integration that was facilitated by a supportive social environment. The articles in this review differed in conceptualizing resilience at various ecological levels.

Conclusion: Much work remains in examining empathy as a resilience factor in LGB individuals. Future research must better define empathy and resilience as concepts in addition to potentially operationalizing empathy as an adaptive resilience factor.

Keywords:

• LGB
• resilience
• protective factors
• empathy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.