Discrimination and sleep disturbance: how is substance use a mediator for sexual minority men?

ABSTRACT

Discrimination plays a role in sleep disturbance for sexual minority men (SMM). Coping with discrimination through substance use may impact this relationship. Therefore, the current study aims to understand how substance use may mediate the relationship between microaggressions and sleep. In 2020, 239 SMM were recruited for an online survey. Participants responded to items about sleep disturbance, sexual orientation microaggressions, and recent substance use. Multivariate regressions investigated the association of microaggressions with sleep disturbance, and if substance use mediates this relationship. Microaggressions were associated with both sleep disturbance and substance use. The final model was significant and a Sobel test indicated that substance use partially mediates the relationship between microaggressions and sleep disturbance. These findings build evidence that increased substance use due to discrimination is contributing to increased sleep disturbance. Social workers should prioritize assessing experiences of discrimination to identify risk for substance use and sleep disturbance.

KEYWORDS:

• Discrimination
• gay men
• LGBTQ
• microaggressions
• sexual minority
• sleep
• substance use

Aknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the study team; Jay O’Shields and Lauren Milliken. We would like to acknowledge the insightful commentary of key informants from the target population. The author would also like to thank the smartphone applications, Grindr, Jack’d and Scruff, for their agreement to support this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.