![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Background: Given higher sexual victimization and greater alcohol use among bisexual women, a critical public health challenge is to understand within-group variation that may heighten or explain these associations in bisexual women. Objectives: The present study tested a moderated-mediation model in which sexual coercion was hypothesized to be associated with alcohol-related consequences via drinking to cope motives in self-identified bisexual women who reported at least occasional binge drinking. Negative affect was hypothesized to moderate the sexual coercion-drinking to cope motives association. Methods: Participants were a community sample of 107 self-identified bisexual women (age M = 20.97, SD = 2.11) who completed an online survey and reported at least one binge drinking episode as well as engaging in sexual activity in the past 30 days. Results: Of these participants, 57 (53.3%) reported one or more experiences of sexual coercion in the past 30 days. Sexual coercion was associated with negative alcohol-related consequences via drinking to cope motives. Negative affect moderated the association between sexual coercion and drinking to cope motives such that the association was stronger among women with greater negative affect. Conclusions/Importance: Methods of addressing vulnerability to sexual coercion and educating young bisexual women about the association between sexual coercion and potentially problematic affective coping through alcohol use are needed.
Acknowledgment
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health under award number R15AA0-20424 to author RJL (PI).
Declaration of interest
The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Notes
1 Mediation and moderated mediation models were also computed controlling for binge drinking episodes in the past 30 days. Results were consistent when including binge drinking as a covariate; moreover, binge drinking was not associated with outcomes when included in the model. Therefore, the most parsimonious model was presented that did not include binge drinking as a covariate.