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Mental disorders and sexual orientation in college students across 13 countries of differing levels of LGBTQ+ acceptance
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA.
Malmö University, Faculty of Health and Society (HS), Department of Criminology (KR). Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9819-2474
Department of Health Medicine and Caring Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
Health Services Research Group, Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
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2025 (English)In: Journal of Psychiatric Research, ISSN 0022-3956, E-ISSN 1879-1379, Vol. 186, p. 331-340Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Mental health disparities have been reported among sexual minority individuals; minority stress theory posits that such disparities are a result of stigma and discrimination. We estimated the prevalence of mental disorders across sexual orientation groups among first-year college students and whether differences across sexual orientation groups varied by gender and country-level LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) social acceptance. Using data (N = 53,175; 13 countries) from the World Mental Health Surveys International College Surveys, we performed multilevel logistic regressions to estimate the associations between sexual orientation (i.e., heterosexual, heterosexual with same-gender attraction [SGA], gay/lesbian, bisexual, asexual, questioning, and other) and five twelve-month DSM-5 disorders (major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, alcohol use disorder, drug use disorder). Heterosexual students with SGA (AORs 1.30-2.15), gay/lesbian (AORs 1.49-2.70), bisexual (AORs 2.26-3.49), questioning (AORs 1.38-2.04), and "other" (AORs 1.76-2.94) students had higher odds of all disorders compared to heterosexual students with no SGA; asexual students did not. Significant interactions with gender show that the gender difference in prevalence was greater among bisexual individuals for most disorders and among all sexual minorities (except "other") for drug use disorder. Significant interactions with country level LGBT+ social acceptance showed some sexual minority groups had lower odds (AORs 0.83-0.95) of disorder as country-level acceptance increased. These findings provide further evidence of mental disorder disparities across a wide range of sexual orientations and how these disparities vary by gender and societal LGBTQ+ acceptance in students from diverse countries.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier , 2025. Vol. 186, p. 331-340
Keywords [en]
College student, Cross-national, DSM-5, Mental disorder, Sexual orientation, Social acceptance
National Category
Psychiatry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-75639DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2025.04.021PubMedID: 40286461Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105003374953OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-75639DiVA, id: diva2:1955253
Available from: 2025-04-29 Created: 2025-04-29 Last updated: 2025-05-12Bibliographically approved

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Andersson, Claes

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