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Peer Victimization and Mental Health Outcomes for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Youth: A Latent Class Analysis
Author(s) -
HeidenRootes Katie,
Salas Joanne,
Moore Rachel,
Hasan Shah,
Wilson Lauren
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of school health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.851
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1746-1561
pISSN - 0022-4391
DOI - 10.1111/josh.12940
Subject(s) - mental health , sexual orientation , youth risk behavior survey , lesbian , latent class model , psychology , clinical psychology , peer victimization , sexual minority , homosexuality , poison control , suicide prevention , psychiatry , medicine , social psychology , environmental health , statistics , mathematics , psychoanalysis
BACKGROUND Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning (LGBQ) adolescents are at increased risk of poor mental health due to minority stress, a chronic stress associated discrimination, social rejection, and victimization brought on by prejudicial attitudes towards LGBQ individuals. To improve understanding of the differential impact of various kinds of victimization on mental health outcomes for LGBQ adolescents, we analyzed data from the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) for victimization and mental health symptom clusters and associations high school youth and compared by sexual orientation and gender. METHODS Separate Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was conducted to identify profiles of both victimization and mental health symptoms for participants (N = 15,624). Subsequently, stratified weighted logistic regression models were used on an eligible analytic sample of 11,458 to assess differences in the association of victimization and mental health between LGBQ and heterosexual high school students. RESULTS In each LCA, participants were assigned to one of 3 classes for victimization (minimal, 81.3%; bullying, 12.5%; or physical/sexual violence, 6.2%) and 1 of 2 classes for mental health symptoms (minimal, 81.2%; severe, 18.8%). LGBQ participants were overrepresented in physical/sexual violence and bullying victimization profiles. Both bullying and physical/sexual violence profiles were associated with almost 5 times the odds of endorsing severe mental health symptoms. Conclusions This study expands our understanding of the relationship between types and effect of peer victimization for LGBQ and heterosexual youth with implications for school health and prevention efforts through increased positive school climate for LGBQ students.