1 - (SYM 102) Minority Stress, Suicidal Ideation, and Externalizing and Internalizing Psychopathology: Application of Dimensional Modeling in Incorporating Diverse Experiences

A main contributor of suicidal ideation (SI) in minoritized populations includes minority stress (MS) – insidious, traumatic distress caused by repeated exposure to discrimination, prejudice, and victimization. Integration of MS in dimensional models of psychopathology may prove illuminating in clarifying the role of MS and dimensional psychopathology factors in relation to SI. To this end, structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to examine the structure of MS, SI, and externalizing psychopathology (EXT) and internalizing psychopathology (INT). Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses were utilized to test structural invariance of MS, SI, and EXT and INT across race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. A path model was estimated to examine whether EXT and INT serially accounted for the association between MS and SI.

Minoritized young adults (77.1% person of color, 41.5% Hispanic/Latine, 47.5% non-heterosexual, 7.6% non-binary; 2.1% transgender; 29.7% with two or more minoritized identities) from a southern U.S. university provided data between July 2022 and March 2023. All models were estimated using robust maximum likelihood and featured the following latent variables: (1) MS, with four subscales from the Trauma Symptoms of Discrimination Scale as indicators; (2) SI with indicators of the total score on the Depressive Symptom Index-Suicidality Subscale, total score on the Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation, and a single-item measure asking participants to rate their intent to die by suicide on a scale of 0 (no intent) to 10 (definite intent) in the past week; (3) EXT with the Externalizing Spectrum Inventory-Brief Form subscales of aggression, theft, substance use, and alcohol use as indicators; and (4) INT with indicators of sum scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5, and Penn State Worry Questionnaire as indicators.

The SEM model of MS, SI, EXT, and INT had good fit (CFI = .98, TLI = .97, RMSEA = .05). Invariance testing results supported metric invariance across race and residual invariance across ethnicity and sexual orientation. accounted for the association between MS and SI (b = .26, SE = .08, p < .01) and INT and EXT serially accounted for the relationship between MS and SI (b = .06, SE = .03, p = .03). The direct association between MS and SI was nonsignificant, supporting full mediation effects. Implications such as the utility of dimensional psychopathology models as they apply to minoritized populations and inform suicide prediction models will be discussed.