Does It Get Better? A Longitudinal Analysis of Psychological Distress and Victimization in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth

Abstract

Purpose The mental health and victimization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth have garnered media attention with the “It Gets Better Project.” Despite this popular interest, there is an absence of empirical evidence evaluating a possible developmental trajectory in LGBTQ distress and the factors that might influence distress over time. Methods This study used an accelerated longitudinal design and multilevel modeling to examine a racially/ethnically diverse analytic sample of 231 LGBTQ adolescents aged 16–20 years at baseline, across six time points, and over 3.5 years. Results Results indicated that both psychological distress and victimization decreased across adolescence and into early adulthood. Furthermore, time-lagged analyses and mediation analyses suggested that distress was related to prior experiences of victimization, with greater victimization leading to greater distress. Support received from parents, peers, and significant others was negatively correlated with psychological distress in the cross-sectional model but did not reach significance in the time-lagged model. Conclusions Analyses suggest that psychological distress might “get better” when adolescents encounter less victimization and adds to a growing literature indicating that early experiences of stress impact the mental health of LGBTQ youth.

Identity, victimization, and support: Facebook experiences and mental health among LGBTQ youth

“…Data collection was conducted in 2013 and 2014. Further description is reported elsewhere (Birkett, Newcomb, & Mustanski, 2015; McConnell, Birkett, & Mustanski, 2016; McConnell, Birkett, & Shattell, 2015). …”

Sexual Orientation and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents

“…Initial evidence concerning sexual orientation disparities in depressive symptoms trajectories comes from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. 9 -11 Using 4 waves of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health data covering a 13-year period (from wave 1 in 1994-1995 to wave 4 in 2007-2009), trajectory analyses revealed that sexual orientation disparities in depressive symptoms were present as early as adolescence (grades [7][8][9][10][11][12] and persisted into early adulthood (ages 24-32 years), 10 and these disparities were more pronounced among female participants. 11 Trajectory studies using more recent samples revealed conflicting evidence.…”

“…In a Chicago sample of sexual minority adolescents aged 16 to 20 years, depressive symptoms were found to decrease over a 3.5-year period. 12 In the Dutch Tracking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey cohort, sexual minority status was associated with increases in depressive symptoms among younger adolescents who were longitudinally followed from age 11 to 22 years. 13 To more fully understand whether these mixed findings are due to variations in the measurement of sexual orientation, when and where the study took place, or differences in the developmental stage examined, trajectory studies of depressive symptoms using more recent population-based samples are needed.…”

The Paradox of Privacy: Revisiting a Core Library Value in an Age of Big Data and Linked Data

“…The YouTube-based project's goal is to inspire LGBTQ youth with positive stories by LGBTQ adults who were victimized or contemplated suicide in their youth but experienced dramatic improvement in their lives as they grew older. The project has received more than 50,000 video submissions and drawn supporters and submissions from individuals such as Barack Obama, various celebrities, and staff members of major corporations, such as Facebook and Google (Birkett, Newcomb, & Mustanski, 2014). Such projects have a potentially revolutionary effect, by both raising public awareness of bullying and discrimination against queer youth and providing desperately needed voices, stories, and role models that enable queer youth to develop and define their own identities.…”