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Trajectories of Mental Health Difficulties in Young People Who are Attracted to the Same Gender: A Systematic Review

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Abstract

There is clear evidence that people who are attracted to the same gender face worse mental health outcomes than their peers; however, it is unclear if this problem is worse at particular stages of development. To clarify this, a systematic review was conducted to describe the overall trajectories of mental health difficulties across development for same-gender attracted youth compared to their peers. The search identified ten studies that examined depressive symptoms, suicidality and eating disorder symptoms. Disparities in these outcomes were evident by the earliest time points recorded and lasted across the full age range of youth under investigation (ages 10–25). There was some evidence that risk of depressive symptoms and suicidality specifically for same-gender attracted youth was greater in both absolute and relative terms during late adolescence. As young people who are attracted to the same gender are vulnerable to mental health problems across their youth, psychological interventions should be developed which target this group across this span. Interventions beginning at least as early as early adolescence may be ideal to help avoid particular elevations in depressive symptoms and suicidality which are evident in late adolescence for this group.

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Funding

DG is supported by a Research Training Program Stipend funded by the Australian Government. SM is supported by a Research Training Program Stipend funded by the Australian Government, The Perth Children’s Hospital Fund PhD Top-up Scholarship and a Raine Medical Foundation PhD Top Up Scholarship. AL is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council Career Development Fellowship (#1148793). YP is supported by the Giorgetta Family Fellowship funded by the Giorgetta Family, who are philanthropic supporters of the Telethon Kids Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Dylan Gilbey, Simone Mahfouda & Jeneva Ohan

  2. Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia, 15 Hospital Ave, Nedlands, WA, 6009, Australia

    Dylan Gilbey, Simone Mahfouda, Ashleigh Lin & Yael Perry

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  1. Dylan Gilbey
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  2. Simone Mahfouda
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Contributions

DG conceived of the study, developed and executed the search strategy, co-screened the papers, co-assessed their quality, extracted and interpreted the data and contributed to writing and editing the manuscript; SM co-conducted the screening process, assessed the quality of the papers and contributed to writing and editing the manuscript; JO contributed to the interpretation of the data and to writing and editing the manuscript; AL contributed to the interpretation of the data and to writing and editing the manuscript; YP participated in the design and coordination of the study, advised on the development of the search and screening processes and contributed to writing and editing the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dylan Gilbey.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

The search of PsycINFO was conducted using a combination of subject headings (Homosexuality, Bisexuality, Mental Health, Longitudinal Studies, Adolescent Development, Childhood Development, College Students) and the keywords listed in Table 2.

Table 2 Keywords used for search of PsycINFO database (Ovid)
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Gilbey, D., Mahfouda, S., Ohan, J. et al. Trajectories of Mental Health Difficulties in Young People Who are Attracted to the Same Gender: A Systematic Review. Adolescent Res Rev 5, 281–293 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-019-00128-8

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