RISK FOR PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AMONG LESBIANS AND GAY MEN

描述(申请人摘要)：在过去的20年里，研究 对女同性恋者和男同性恋者进行精神病理学检查已经不再是 将同性恋视为研究社会压力作用的原因 源于这一人群普遍存在的歧视和 被害。与心理社会压力模型预测的一致 证据表明，更高的忧郁率甚至精神错乱率将会导致 这表明女同性恋者和男同性恋者可能比其他人更有可能经历 抑郁障碍，功能失调的药物/酒精使用，以及自杀未遂， 尽管调查结果好坏参半。此外，研究暗示，女同性恋者和同性恋者 男性可能有不同的精神卫生保健需求和利用模式。这些 然而，这些问题在很大程度上没有得到充分的研究，不幸的是，大多数问题 工作一直受到关键方法限制的阻碍，主要是近乎 完全依赖基于便利性的抽样设计，没有类似的抽样 异性恋控制。医学研究所最近一份关于女同性恋者健康的报告 应美国国立卫生研究院和疾病控制与预防中心的要求发布，以指导对这一问题的研究 人口得出结论，以人口为基础的研究和发展 需要改进方法以提供关于以下方面的基本信息 发病风险和保护因素。为回应国际移民组织的建议 和NIMH RFA PA-99-121，本申请建议利用 存在几个基于总体的数据集，这些数据集提供了一种检查方法 女同性恋者和男同性恋者作为一个群体使用心理健康和相关服务。 具体地说，我们将在6项全国性调查中确定可能是 女同性恋者或男同性恋者使用性行为和关系状态指标。 然后，我们将把这些样本与相似身份的异性恋女性进行比较 和男性为了估计精神健康发病率，质量 生命指标和治疗利用率。调查结果将澄清 过高的精神风险，以及可能促进复原力的因素， 女同性恋和男同性恋。这项研究的另一个目标是促进发展 对这一人群的研究方法。为此，我们将进行 使用基于人口的数据和之前收集的数据进行比较 基于便利性的调查(包括大约10,000名女同性恋者) 确定人口统计学和心理健康方面可能存在的发病率差异 在抽样的两个来源人群中的女性之间。调查结果将极大地 在未来的研究中协助制定更有效的采样框架。

DESCRIPTION (Applicant's abstract): Within the last 2 decades, research examining psychopathology among lesbians and gay men has moved away from viewing homosexuality as causal to investigating the role of social stress arising from this population's common experiences with discrimination and victimization. Consistent with a psychosocial stress model predicting that higher rates of distress and perhaps mental disorders will result, evidence suggests that lesbians and gay men may be more likely than others to experience depressive disorders, dysfunctional drug/alcohol use, and suicide attempts, though findings are mixed. In addition, research hints that lesbians and gay men may have different mental health care needs and utilization patterns. These issues, though, are largely understudied and, unfortunately, the majority of work has been hampered by critical methodological limitations, primarily a near total reliance on convenience-based sampling designs without similarly sampled heterosexual controls. A recent Institute of Medicine report on lesbian health issued in response to NIH and CDC requests for guidance on research with this population concluded that population-based studies and development of methodological improvements were needed to provide essential information about morbidity risk and protective factors. In response to the IOM recommendations and NIMH RFA PA-99-121, the current application proposes to capitalize on the existence of several population-based datasets that offer a means of examining mental health and related services use by lesbians and gay men as a population. Specifically, we will identify in 6 national surveys individuals likely to be lesbians or gay men using sexual behavior and relationship status indicators. We will then compare these samples to similarly identified heterosexual women and men in order to estimate prevalence of mental health morbidity, quality of life indicators, and treatment utilization. Findings will clarify the nature of excess psychiatric risk, as well as factors that may promote resiliency, among lesbians and gay men. A further goal of the study is to facilitate developments in research methodology with this population. To that end, we will conduct comparisons using data from population-based and previously collected convenience-based surveys (including approximately 1 0,000 lesbians) in order to identify possible demographic and mental health morbidity differences between women in the two source populations sampled. Findings will greatly assist developing more efficient sampling frames in future studies.