Greater Minority Stress is Associated with Lower Intentions to Disclose Suicidal Thoughts among LGBTQ + Youth

Abstract

Objective

The current study examined suicide-related disclosure intentions in LGBTQ + youth, and the associations between reporting of lifetime experiences of minority stress and intentions to disclose suicidal thoughts.

Method

A sample of 592 LGBTQ + youth ages 12–24 (22.3% cisgender men, 33.1% cisgender women, 44.6% gender diverse, 75.3% white) who contacted an LGBTQ-specific crisis service, completed a survey.

Results

Youth reported highest intentions to disclose future suicidal ideation to LGBTQ-specific crisis services, a mental health professional, and someone they know who also identifies as LGBTQ. They reported lowest suicide-related disclosure intentions to family, spiritual counselors, and emergency room personnel. Greater lifetime minority stress was significantly associated with lower suicide-related disclosure intentions. When specific domains of minority stress were examined separately, five domains were significantly associated with lower suicide-related disclosure intentions: identity management, family rejection, homonegative communication, negative expectancies, and internalized homonegativity. However, only internalized homonegativity remained significant when they were examined simultaneously. In addition, greater lifetime minority stress was significantly associated with lower suicide-related disclosure intentions to some groups (e.g., family, friends), but not others (e.g., others who have thought about or attempted suicide, others who identify as LGBT).

Conclusions

Minority stress may play an important role in LGBTQ + youth’s suicide-related disclosure intentions. As such, reducing minority stress and its effects may be an important target to promote disclosure of suicidal thoughts and access to treatment among LGBTQ + youth.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Minority stress was associated with lower suicide-related disclosure intentions.

• Internalized homonegativity was uniquely associated with disclosure intentions.

• Reducing minority stress may promote disclosure of suicidal thoughts.

Keywords:

• Disclosure
• LGBT
• minority stress
• suicide

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Given that the disclosure intention items were rated on an ordinal scale, we re-ran the analyses that included these items using ordinal regression. The pattern of results was largely the same as when we ran these analyses using linear regression. The one exception was that the association between minority stress and intentions to disclose to emergency room staff was significant when ordinal regression was used (b= −0.02, p = 0.046, but it was not significant when linear regression was used (b= −0.02, p = 0.06).

Additional information

Funding

The collection of data for this study was funded by the Trevor Project through a contract to Jeremy T. Goldbach at the University of Southern California. Brian Feinstein’s time was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (K08DA045575; PI: Feinstein). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Notes on contributors

Cindy J. Chang

Cindy J. Chang, Psy.M., Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.

John Kellerman

John Kellerman, B.A., Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.

Brian A. Feinstein

Brian A. Feinstein, Ph.D., Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Edward A. Selby

Edward A. Selby, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.

Jeremy T. Goldbach

Jeremy T. Goldbach, Ph.D., Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.