Background
Young people (aged 12-25 years) with diverse sexuality, gender, or bodily characteristics, such as those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer (LGBTIQ+), are at substantially greater risk of a range of mental, physical, and sexual health difficulties compared with their peers. Digital health interventions have been identified as a potential way to reduce these health disparities.
Objective
This review aims to summarize the characteristics of existing evidence-based digital health interventions for LGBTIQ+ young people and to describe the evidence for their effectiveness, acceptability, and feasibility.
Methods
A systematic literature search was conducted using internet databases and gray literature sources, and the results were screened for inclusion. The included studies were synthesized qualitatively.
Results
The search identified 38 studies of 24 unique interventions seeking to address mental, physical, or sexual health–related concerns in LGBTIQ+ young people. Substantially more evidence-based interventions existed for gay and bisexual men than for any other population group, and there were more interventions related to risk reduction of sexually transmitted infections than to any other health concern. There was some evidence for the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of these interventions overall; however, the quality of evidence is often lacking.
Conclusions
There is sufficient evidence to suggest that targeted digital health interventions are an important focus for future research aimed at addressing health difficulties in LGBTIQ+ young people. Additional digital health interventions are needed for a wider range of health difficulties, particularly in terms of mental and physical health concerns, as well as more targeted interventions for same gender–attracted women, trans and gender-diverse people, and people with intersex variations.
Trial Registration
PROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42020128164; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=128164
BACKGROUND
Young people of diverse sexuality, gender or bodily characteristics, such as those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex or queer (LGBTIQ+), are at substantially greater risk of a range of mental, physical and sexual health difficulties compared to their peers. Digital health interventions have been identified as a potential way forward to reducing these health disparities.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this review was to identify and summarise existing evidence-based digital health interventions for LGBTIQ+ young people, and to describe the evidence for their efficacy, acceptability and feasibility.
METHODS
A systematic literature search was conducted of online databases and grey literature sources, and the results were screened for inclusion. Included studies were synthesised qualitatively.
RESULTS
The search identified 38 studies of 24 unique interventions seeking to address mental, physical or sexual health-related concerns in LGBTIQ+ young people. These interventions were largely found to be effective, feasible, and acceptable to the target population. Substantially more evidence-based interventions existed for gay and bisexual men, related to risk reduction of sexually-transmitted infections, than any other population group or health concern.
CONCLUSIONS
There is sufficient evidence to suggest that targeted digital health interventions are an important path forward to addressing health difficulties in LGBTIQ+ young people. Additional digital health interventions are needed for a wider range of health difficulties, particularly in terms of mental and physical health concerns, as well as more targeted interventions for same gender-attracted women, trans and gender diverse people and people with intersex variations.
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