Bias-Based Harassment and Associations With Depression, Anxiety, and Substance Use Among Adolescents: Identifying Protective Factors

• In Event: Bias-Based Bullying Among Adolescents: Protective Factors and Bystander Interventions

Abstract

Purpose: This study assesses adolescents’ exposures to six bias-based harassment forms (i.e., based on race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, immigration status, national origin) and how exposures relate to mental health and substance use. Further, this investigation tests three protective factors at varying levels of the social ecology: friend support, school support, and authoritative parenting.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework: Bias-based harassment victimization affects adolescents’ wellbeing, with documented associations to depression, suicidal ideation and attempts, and substance use (Price-Feeney et al., 2018; Russell et al., 2012). There is a dearth of research, however, that utilizes data from multiple informants and explores protective factors across the social ecology that might buffer adolescents from deleterious effects of bias-based harassment. In line with both social-ecological and minority stress models, better understanding ways in which the multiple contexts in which youth are embedded might be beneficial to outcomes is essential.

Methods: 639 adolescents and their guardians were recruited through NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel®, which closely approximates a nationally representative sample of U.S. households, and completed self-report online surveys. Most adolescents were in high school (82%), female (54%), White (59%), and straight (76%), with the most common religious affiliations being Christian (26%) and No religion/Atheist (28%). Approximately 26% of participants identified as 1st generation immigrants, and 12% reported a hidden or visible disability.

Adolescents completed: (1) Items assessing bias-based harassment – i.e., whether in the past 12 months they had been harassed or bullied by other students because of their: race or ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, immigration status or perceived immigration, or gender identity (response options = 0 times, 1 time, 2-3 times, and 4 or more times; dichotomized in analyses); (2) the PHQ-9 (Kroenke & Spitzer, 2002), to assess depression; (3) the GAD-7 (Spitzer et al., 2007), to measure anxiety; (4) the Problem Behavior Scale (Farrell et al., 2016) to evaluate alcohol/drug use; (5) the Vaux Social Support Record (Vaux, 1988), to assess peer social support; and (6) the Student Support Scale (Cornell et al., 2015), to evaluate school support. Parents completed the 15-item Authoritative parenting subscale from the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire, short form (Robinson et al., 1995; Robinson et al., 2001).

Results: Regression analyses were computed using Mplus 8.7 to determine the extent to which bias-based harassment victimization predicted mental health (depression, anxiety) and substance use. First, analyses controlling for demographics and with single bias-based harassment exposures predicting dependent variables were run. All forms predicted anxiety, depression, and substance use. In the next models, a summed continuous victimization score was entered, controlling for demographics. For all models, as the number of bias-based harassment victimization exposures increased, so did mental health symptoms and substance use. Forthcoming analyses will test support (friend, school) and authoritative parenting as moderators between bias-based harassment and functioning.

Significance: Findings highlight that each individual form of bias-based harassment exposure experienced, as well as cumulative victimization exposures, were associated with more mental health symptoms and substance use, underscoring the need to reduce bias-based harassment.

Authors

• Melissa K. Holt, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Phoebe Zimski
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gabriel Joey Merrin, University of Illinois
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Greif Green, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gianluca Gini, University of Padova
  Non-Presenting Author