“Mental Health in People With Minority Sexual Orientations: A Meta-Analysis of Population-Based Studies”, 2022-01-28 (; similar):
Aims: To conduct a meta-analysis of population-based studies to quantify the association between sexual minority status (lesbian women, gay men, and bisexual people) and the risk of common mental disorders (depressive disorders, alcohol use disorders (AUD), anxiety disorders, and suicidality).
Method: PubMed, PsycInfo, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library Database, the Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)/ ProQuest were searched for relevant studies published between 2000 and May 2020. The PRISMA guidelines were followed for selection processes. 26 studies met the inclusion criteria which included a total of 519,414 heterosexuals, 10,178 lesbian/gay people and 14,410 bisexual people.
Results: Lesbian/gay people (ORs between 1.97, 95% [CI = 1.76, 2.19] and 2.89, 95% [CI = 2.41,3.38]) and bisexual people (ORs between 2.70; 95% [CI = 2.21,3.18], and 4.81; 95% [CI = 3.63, 5.99]) had a higher risk for mental disorders than heterosexuals for all investigated diagnostic categories. The risk for depression (OR = 2.70; 95% [CI = 2.21, 3.18]) and suicidality (OR = 4.81; 95% [CI = 3.63, 5.99]) was higher in bisexual compared with lesbian/gay people. Exploratory meta-regressions revealed no evidence for a decrease in mental health differences between people with minority sexual orientations and heterosexuals in more recent years of data assessment, except for AUD.
Conclusion: These findings clearly suggest disparities in mental health between people with minority sexual orientations and heterosexual people. There is a lack of data regarding a wider spectrum of sexual orientations and mental disorders and studies in non-Western countries.
Summations:
Higher risk for mental disorders in people with minority sexual orientations
No indication for decreasing mental health disparities in recent years in exploratory analyses
Lack of data regarding wider spectrum of sexual orientations and disorders
Limitations:
less than half of the included studies used structured interviews to determine diagnostic status
no analysis of the interplay of gender and sexual orientation
no analysis of the influence of age, ethnicity, and other socio-demographic variables
…The meta-regression showed that the quality of the included studies comparing lesbian/gay with heterosexual people was positively associated to mental health differences across all diagnostic categories (β = 0.09; [CI = 0.00, 0.19]) as well as for depression (β = 0.09; [CI = 0.00, 0.17]). Further, the mental health difference between lesbian/gay people compared with heterosexuals were larger in studies using diagnostic interviews compared with symptom scales for comparisons across all categories pooled together (β = 0.30; [CI = 0.11; 0.51]), as well as for depression (β = 0.33; [CI = 0.17; 0.50]) and alcohol use disorder (β = 0.59 [CI = 0.08; 1.12]), in particular. In other words, the better the study quality and the better the method to determine diagnostic status, the larger the detected mental health disparities for lesbian/gay people compared with heterosexuals. There was no moderation by the year of data assessment or sexuality measure (ie. identity, history of sexual partners, and behavior) (ps > 0.49).