4 - (SYM 51) Differences in Emotion Regulation Underlie the Sexual Orientation Disparity in Depressive Symptoms: A Population-based Study of Young Adults

Background: Sexual minorities experience high rates of both identity-related stress (e.g., discrimination) and mental health concerns. Hatzenbuehler’s (2009) psychological mediation framework proposes that emotion regulation (ER) mediates the link between identity-related stress and mental health outcomes in this population. However, existing research on the framework has focused on a small number of ER variables and has relied on non-probability samples, which limit understanding of the scope and generalizability of sexual orientation-related differences in ER.

Methods: We compared the prevalence of ER difficulties in a population-based longitudinal sample of 1,679 Swedish young adults (ages 18–35; n=728 sexual minorities) by sexual orientation. At Time 1, participants completed 12 measures of ER, spanning all four stages of the extended process model of ER (Sheppes et al., 2015), including identification (e.g., emotional awareness), selection (e.g., access to ER strategies), implementation (e.g., expressive suppression), and monitoring (e.g., brooding rumination); one year later (Time 2) participants also completed a measure of depression symptoms (CES-D). Mediation analyses were conducted in Mplus, entering sexual orientation (sexual minority vs. heterosexual; Time 1) as the predictor, depression (Time 2) as the outcome, ER processes (Time 1) as the mediator, and age and assigned sex as covariates. Weights were employed to make the cohort representative of the Swedish population.

Results: Sexual minorities exhibited significantly higher levels of depression and more ER difficulties across all four stages of the extended process model compared to heterosexuals. In individual models, 10 of the 12 ER processes mediated the sexual orientation disparity in depression. In models with all 12 ER measures entered simultaneously, three ER processes (difficulties identifying positive feelings, limited access to ER strategies, and brooding rumination) significantly mediated the prospective link between sexual orientation and depression (ps< 0.01).

Conclusions: These findings highlight the wide range of ER difficulties sexual minorities experience relative to heterosexuals and elucidate the mediating role of ER in the development of depression symptoms in this population. Future studies should use population-level samples to explore whether different ER constructs are implicated in other mental health disparities (e.g., anxiety) facing sexual minority people.