Symposia
LGBQT+
Ethan H. Mereish, PhD
Associate Professor
American University
Washington, District of Columbia
Jessica R. Peters, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Assistant Professor
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island
Leslie Brick, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Providence, RI
Matthew Killam, PhD
Clinical Research Coordinator
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston, Massachusetts
Shirley Yen, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Associate Professor
Harvard Medical School
Newton, Massachusetts
Objective: Sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) are at greater risk than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Unique stressors (i.e., minority stressors) specific to SGMY’s stigmatized identities such as discrimination or concealment of one’s identity are posited to explain these disparities. However, there is limited research examining the associations among minority stressors, affective mediating processes, and STB and NSSI in sexual and gender minority youth’s daily lives. We conducted a 28-day daily diary study to test the mediating effects of daily negative and positive affect and emotion dysregulation between minority stressors and STB and NSSI among SGMY.
Methods: Participants were 92 SGMY, ages 12 to 19 years old (M = 16.45; SD = 1.81; 64% cisgender; 69% White), who were recruited from clinical and community settings. Participants demonstrated high compliance over the 28-day monitoring period (83%).
Results: Results indicated that on days SGMY experienced distal and proximal minority stressors, they reported greater intensity of suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious ideation and affective distress (i.e., greater negative affect, lower positive affect, and more emotion dysregulation). Greater affective reactivity processes were associated with greater suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious ideation intensity on the same day. Most of the within-person associations between external and internalized minority stressors and ideation intensity were mediated by heightened negative affect and emotion dysregulation but not lower positive affect.
Conclusion: Our results provide the first evidence of these associations among SGMY, advance the minority stress model, and have implications for clinical interventions as we identified modifiable affective mechanisms.