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Disclosure Stress, Social Support, and Depressive Symptoms Among Cisgender Bisexual Youth
Author(s) -
Pollitt Amanda M.,
Muraco Joel A.,
Grossman Arnold H.,
Russell Stephen T.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/jomf.12418
Subject(s) - psychology , social support , clinical psychology , differential association , beck depression inventory , structural equation modeling , depressive symptoms , developmental psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , anxiety , statistics , mathematics
Bisexual youth are at elevated risk for depression when compared with lesbians and gay men. Research on bisexual stigma suggests that these youth are uniquely vulnerable to stress related to sexual identity disclosure. Depression associated with this stress may be buffered by social support from parents and friends. We examined the differential influence of social support from parents and friends (Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale) on the relation between disclosure stress ( LGBTQ Coming Out Stress Scale) and depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory) and differences by gender in a sample of cisgender bisexual youth ( N = 383) using structural equation modeling. Parental support buffered the association between stressful disclosure to family and depressive symptoms, especially for bisexual men; bisexual women seemed not to benefit from such support when disclosure stress was high. This nuanced examination elucidates the ways family members and clinicians can best support bisexual youth sexual identity disclosure.