Moderating Role of Empowerment in Suicide Ideation Among LGBTQ+ College Students

Abstract

Individuals who identify as a sexual and/or gender minority (LGBTQ+) report significantly higher rates of suicide ideation than heterosexuals (Stone et al., 2014). Identifying factors that may lead to, or protect against, this discrepancy in risk is important for protecting LGBTQ+ youth and preventing suicide in this population. Few studies look at protective factors, but one identified that self-esteem reduced risk among LGBTQ college students (Peter et al., 2014). We aimed to expand existing research by examining a potential protective factor, empowerment, to evaluate whether this factor would change the strength of the associations between our variables and suicide ideation.