Changes in outness to peers and friends and implications for mental health

• In Event: Sexual minority identity development and mental health: New methodological, contextual, and population insights

Abstract

Background
Sexual minority youth (SMY) must navigate sexual identity disclosure to friends and family throughout adolescence and adulthood, which has implications for their mental health (Mallory et al., 2021). SMY vary regarding which groups of people they tell about their sexual identities (Caba et al., 2022), and this also changes over time (Pachankis et al., 2018). Yet, most of the literature has relied on cross-sectional data to document how outness and mental health are related. Such studies cannot elucidate whether mental health varies based on changes in outness, the experiences associated with being out, or to whom SMY are out. We leverage longitudinal data of SMY to compare cross-sectional and prospective approaches to address the following research questions: 1) How does mental health and LGBT victimization differ across groups of SMY youth who are and are not out to their friends and peers?; 2) Does mental health and LGBT victimization vary with changes in outness to peers and friends?

Method
We utilized data from 496 SMY ages 15-24 (M=18.8) recruited from community-based organizations in the Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest regions of the U.S. The data were collected in two waves nine months apart.

Independent Variable
SMY’s perception of peers’ and friends’ knowledge about their sexual identity was assessed with two items from the Family and Friends Knowledge and Reactions scale (D’Augelli et al., 2008). We used these questions to determine if school peers and friends definitely knew (1) or did not know (0) about SMY's sexual identity at baseline. We used a continuous measure to assess changes in outness between the two waves.

Dependent Variables
Depression was measured with the Beck Depression Inventory for Youth (Beck, 1996). Suicidality was measured with the Positive and Negative Suicide Inventory (Muehlenkamp et al., 2005). Self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1979). LGBT victimization was measured by six items (e.g., verbal, physical, or sexual victimization due to being LGBT) on a four-point scale (0) never to (3) three or more times; (D’Augelli et al., 2008). Wave 1 assessed lifetime LGBT victimization and Wave 2 assessed LGBT victimization in the past nine months.

Analysis Plan
We conducted both within-wave t-tests to test cross-sectional group differences and prospective difference-in-difference models across waves to test the relations between changes in outness with changes in mental health.

Results
Results from the within-wave t-tests (Table 1) aligned with prior research suggesting that SMY who reported that peers and friends knew about their sexual identity reported better mental health. Prospective difference-in-difference models (Table 2) showed that those who reported increased outness to friends and peers during the study reported lower depressive symptoms. Those who increased in outness to friends also reported more positive self-thinking.

Discussion
Results suggest that examining differences in mental health and minority stress over time yields distinct insights relative to examining mean group differences. These distinctions have implications for supporting SMY who disclose their sexual identities.

Authors

• Allen Mallory, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Meg Bishop, University of Maryland - College Park

• Stephen T Russell, University of Texas at Austin