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Sexual Identity and its Association with Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms and Emotion Regulation Difficulties from Early to Middle Adolescence

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Abstract

Few studies have examined how changes in sexual identity impact trajectories of depressive symptoms and emotion regulation difficulties. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining these associations over a three-year period in a community sample of adolescents (N = 177; Mage = 12.56; SD = 0.60; nmale = 95). Multilevel modeling revealed that youth who consistently held sexual minority identities from early to middle adolescence—but not youth with inconsistent sexual identity—demonstrated increases in depressive symptoms and emotion regulation difficulties relative to their heterosexual peers. Findings suggest that treatments that bolster emotion regulation abilities and address depressive symptoms may be of particular benefit to youth with consistent sexual minority identities from early to middle adolescence.

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Notes

  1. Given that data on sexual identity was unavailable at Baseline and 6 Month follow-up, main analyses were also run with outcome measurements only at 1—3 Year follow-ups (excluding Baseline and 6 Month follow-up outcome measurements). The pattern of results with these analyses were comparable to those obtained with analyses including outcome measurements at all time points.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the NIH for the financial support but recognize that the findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of NIH.

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), R01-DA033431 (PI: Chaplin) and F31-DA051154 (PI: Gonçalves).

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Author notes

  1. Roberto López Jr. and Stefanie F. Gonçalves contributed equally to this work as first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive MS 3F5 Fairfax, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    Roberto López Jr, Stefanie F. Gonçalves, Christianne Esposito-Smythers & Tara M. Chaplin

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University/Bradley Hospital, Providence, RI, USA

    Jennifer A. Poon

  3. Department of Biobehavioral Health, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, PA, USA

    Emily B. Ansell

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  1. Roberto López Jr
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  3. Jennifer A. Poon
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  5. Christianne Esposito-Smythers
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Correspondence to Roberto López Jr or Stefanie F. Gonçalves.

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SFG and TMC are currently receiving funding from NIH. All other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Prior to conducting the study, the Institutional Review Boards of the two data collection sites approved the research protocol, including the consent procedure. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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López, R., Gonçalves, S.F., Poon, J.A. et al. Sexual Identity and its Association with Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms and Emotion Regulation Difficulties from Early to Middle Adolescence. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 53, 1062–1074 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-021-01188-5

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