Abstract
Transgender women (TGW) experience serious psychiatric problems and high suicide rates. According to the interpersonal theory of suicide, thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness play major roles in suicidality and can be measured by the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ). However, no study has validated the use of the INQ in TGW. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the INQ among TGW. We recruited 198 TGW (mean age 38.47 years) from Shenyang, China, using snowball sampling. The construct validity of the INQ was assessed through factor analysis, and convergent and divergent validity were examined through a structural equation model with other psychosocial factors. The construct validation analysis supported a three-factor model (perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and social exclusion) with satisfactory fit indices: χ2/df = 1.54, RMSEA = 0.052, CFI = 0.931, TLI = 0.916, SRMR = 0.053. The thwarted belongingness was significantly associated with self-esteem and social support, and the social exclusion was significantly associated with loneliness, depression, entrapment, and defeat, suggesting satisfactory convergent and divergent validity for the three-factor model. The present findings indicate that for TGW, high social exclusion is important in assessing perceived interpersonal needs, while the notable deviation from previous two-factor model warrants further study.
Highlights
Transgender women (TGW) are those who were born with a male biological sex but have a female psychological sex and self-perception, regardless of medical interventions, such as gender reassignment surgery and hormone injections (Poteat et al, 2015; Becasen et al, 2019; Shi and Cai, 2020)
The Exploratory Factor Analysis The results of EFA with 1–4 factors yielded three eigenvalues greater than one (Table 2). Both the three-factor model and the four-factor model displayed good model fits on x2/ df, root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), and SRMR
We further examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ) after identifying the three-factor model
Summary
Transgender women (TGW) are those who were born with a male biological sex but have a female psychological sex and self-perception, regardless of medical interventions, such as gender reassignment surgery and hormone injections (Poteat et al, 2015; Becasen et al, 2019; Shi and Cai, 2020). If all people questioning their gender were considered transgender, 0.5%~1.3% of the global population are TGW and 0.4% ~ 1.2% are transgender men (Winter et al, 2016). A study reported that the depression rate of TGW was as high as 64% (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, CESD scale score ≥16; Nemoto et al, 2014), four times higher than the general population (Hyde et al, 2013). Suicide rates are high among TGW, with a review showing that suicide attempts in this population were 24.8% (95% CI: 18.0–33.2%; Becasen et al, 2019). In a US study, 41% of TGW reported having attempted suicide, compared with a frequency of 1.6% in the general population (Winter et al, 2016)
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