Impact of Social Context on the Self-Concept of Gay and Lesbian Youth: A Systematic Review

Abstract

ObjectivesSelf-concept distortion has been extensively linked with decreasing mental health in gay and lesbian youth. Social context has been proposed to have a moderating effect on the development of a healthy self-concept. However, no good quality review has approached these concepts with regards to LGBT youth.MethodsA systematic review was conducted on the relationship between social context and self-concept in gay and lesbian youth. Twenty studies were included in the review.ResultsQuality assessment of papers yielded moderate methodological strength. Findings implied that social context has considerable influence on self-concept development. Discrepancies in assessment methods, areas of social context examined, and one-dimensional nature of examining self-concept interferes with drawing explicit conclusions regarding the relationship between social context and self-concept.ConclusionPositivity of social context is not conclusively relatable to positive self-concept development, and similarly, a negative context is not predetermining of self-concept distortions. Building on resilience factors of gay and lesbian youth, working together with families, and advancing and utilizing available educational and community resources should mitigate the strength of overt and covert heterosexism hindering healthy self-concept development. Further longitudinal and cross-cultural research will be necessary to provide insight into the mechanisms of associations.

The Role of LGBTQ Identity Pride in the Associations among Discrimination, Social Support, and Depression in a Sample of LGBTQ Adolescents

“…These findings point to the importance of social support as a resilience factor for LGBTQ adolescents. 47 Our most noteworthy findings were that all indirect pathways in our hypothesized model were statistically significant, suggesting that bullying and family rejection may contribute to depression by reducing pride in one's LGBTQ identity, whereas social support may protect against depression by increasing pride in one's LGBTQ identity. We found the same pattern of results for both types of discrimination (bullying and family rejection) and for all four types of social support (general teacher support, LGBTQ-specific teacher support, general family support, and LGBTQ-specific family support).…”

Health Inequities in LGBT People and Nursing Interventions to Reduce Them: A Systematic Review

“…After the search, we obtained a total of 381 records, of which 16 articles were selected: 1 systematic review and meta-analysis [28], 5 systematic reviews [29][30][31][32][33], 1 cross-sectional descriptive study [34], 4 qualitative studies [35][36][37][38], and 5 quasi-experimental pre-testpost-test studies [39][40][41][42][43]. Regarding the variables of the reviews, 6 articles addressed the specific health needs of LGBT people [28,29,[31][32][33][34], 3 focused on LGBT people's experiences and perceptions [35][36][37], and 10 presented nursing interventions in the LGBT community [30][31][32][33][38][39][40][41][42][43].…”

“…According to the classification by the World Bank [44], 8 articles were from high-income economies (the USA, Canada, and Ireland) and 2 were from upper-middle-income economies (Turkey and Thailand). Of the articles selected, 4 studies centred their investigation on LGBT people in general [34][35][36][37], 3 focused on LGBT youth [29,32,33], 1 specifically analysed trans youth [31], and another examined trans women and trans men [28]; 7 studies assessed the training of health professionals and students [30,[38][39][40][41][42][43], some of which focused on nurses [40,43] or nursing students [38,41].…”

“…The results of the selected studies [28,29,[31][32][33][34] showed that the LGBT population collectively exhibited increased rates of MH problems, substance abuse, risky sexual behaviours, STIs, self-harm, and suicide. These problems were closely associated with experiences related to anti-LGBT attitudes and minority stress such as bullying, isolation, marginalisation, victimisation, and social, family, or peer rejection.…”

A Qualitative Community Assessment of Racial/Ethnic Sexual Gender Minority Young Adults: Principles for Strategies to Motivate Action(s) for Realistic Tasks (SMART Thinking) Addressing HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse

“…Most evidence-based interventions are packaged to be delivered at the individual level, but there is significant value in delivering some content at the level of the group, with complementary services that focused on bringing participants into social settings that reinforce group skills (Hossain & Ferreira, 2019). For example, consciously embedding program activities into popular venues and social circles such as student wellness and counseling centers, sports, and recreational centers, cultural centers, and fraternity and sorority groups and programs can be a model for success in reducing the feeling of isolation and dismay.…”