How Do Sexual Minority Adolescents Cope with Minority Stress?

Introduction: Sexual minority adolescents (SMA; 14-19 years old) experience disparities in health and behavioral health outcomes high rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, substance use, HIV risk behavior, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. These outcomes are commonly attributed to minority stress. Stress experiences for SMA are different than their adult counterparts.  For example, coming out may more likely result in homelessness as these youth live more often at home.  To our knowledge, this is the first known study to report on the coping strategies that sexual minority adolescent’s rely upon when confronted with minority stress experiences.

Methods: Forty-eight racially and ethnically diverse SMA (age 14-19) were recruited in a large metropolitan area for 90-minute tape-recorded interviews. The semi-structured interviews were guided by a Life History Calendar (LHC). Recordings were transcribed verbatim and entered into QSR NVivo.  All transcripts were coded by two members of the research team and went through a consensus process.

Results: Forty-nine unique coping strategies emerged that clustered within nine domains: General strategies, sexual orientation coping, gender identity coping, disclosure-related coping, family-oriented coping, school/peer-related coping, racial/ethnic identity intersection coping LGBTQ community coping, and religious coping. Chi-square analyses indicate that nine of the fifteen most discussed coping strategies vary in use/discussion by gender, sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity of respondent. Analyses of variance and t-tests for difference in mean also indicate differences across gender, sexual orientation, and race related to total of each coping domain. This included Caucasian youth reporting significantly more family coping compared to racial/ethnic minority youth.

Conclusions: Findings indicate that youth use a number of strategies to cope with minority stress related to being a sexual minority. Further, a youth’s sexual orientation, race/ethnicity and gender may contribute to utilization of different types of coping strategies. Future research is needed to understand how demographic differences influence the mobilization of supportive resources from different social contexts. Although further research is needed, the present study identified a variety of ways youth cope and can inform future research on the development interventions.