Mental Health and Substance Use by Sexual Minority Status in High School Students Who Experienced Sexual Violence.

Abstract

PURPOSE\nTo examine the association between sexual minority status and the prevalence of emotional distress and substance use among a nationally-representative sample of youth who reported sexual violence victimization.\n\n\nMETHODS\nData were from the 2017 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a biennial school-based survey. We restricted the sample to youth who reported any past-year sexual violence victimization. We estimated prevalence ratios using modified Poisson regression with robust error variance to examine associations of sexual minority status with depressive symptomology, suicidality, and substance use.\n\n\nRESULTS\nAmong the 1,364 (9.7%) students who experienced sexual violence, 78% were girls. Relative to heterosexual youth, sexual minority youth had higher prevalence estimates for the emotional distress outcomes and marijuana use. Sexual minority status was associated with depressive symptomology (adjusted prevalence ratio 1.33, 95% confidence interval 1.22-1.44), suicidal ideation (aPR: 1.91, 1.66-2.20), medically-treated suicide attempt (aPR: 2.74, 1.53-4.93), and past 30-day marijuana use (aPR: 1.29, 1.06-1.57).\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\nAmong youth who experience sexual violence, sexual minorities may experience more emotional distress and substance use outcomes than heterosexuals. Rape crisis programs and other tertiary interventions should attend to the unique needs of sexual minorities who have been sexually victimized.