Patterns of childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence, emotion dysregulation, and mental health symptoms among lesbian, gay, and bisexual emerging adults: A three-step latent class approach

Ruby Charak; Lillianne Villarreal; Rachel M Schmitz; Michiyo Hirai; Julian D Ford

doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.007

Patterns of childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence, emotion dysregulation, and mental health symptoms among lesbian, gay, and bisexual emerging adults: A three-step latent class approach

Child Abuse Negl. 2019 Mar:89:99-110. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.007. Epub 2019 Jan 14.

Authors

Ruby Charak¹, Lillianne Villarreal², Rachel M Schmitz³, Michiyo Hirai², Julian D Ford⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychological Science, The University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, United States of America. Electronic address: ruby.charak@utrgv.edu.
² Department of Psychological Science, The University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, United States of America.
³ Department of Sociology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United States of America.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut Health Center, United States of America.

PMID: 30654290
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.007

Abstract

Background: Childhood abuse and neglect (CAN) and intimate partner violence victimization (IPV) is prevalent among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals (LGB). Identification of distinct patterns of childhood and adult victimization, including technology-mediated and face-to-face IPV, and their cumulative relations to mental/behavioral health challenges, among LGB people is needed to facilitate identification of at-risk individuals.

Objective: Using latent class analysis, we first sought to identify patterns of lifetime interpersonal victimization, primarily five types of CAN and IPV in LGB emerging adults. Second, we examined if LGB-status and race/ethnicity predicted class-membership; third, we assessed differences between the latent classes on emotion dysregulation, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and alcohol use.

Participants: Participants were 288 LGB adults between 18-29 years (M = 25.35, SD = 2.76; 41.7% gay/lesbian) recruited via Amazon MTurk.

Methods and results: The 3-step LCA identified five-latent classes: high victimization, childhood emotional abuse and neglect, cybervictimization, adult face-to-face IPV, and lower victimization. People of color (including Hispanics) were more likely to be in the high victimization class, and bisexual individuals, especially bisexual women, in the childhood emotional abuse and neglect class. High victimization and childhood emotional abuse and neglect classes had elevated emotion dysregulation levels and depression and anxiety symptoms, and the high victimization class reported the highest levels of alcohol use.

Conclusion: Findings suggest a detrimental effect of cumulative interpersonal victimization on emotion dysregulation and the mental/behavioral health of LGB emerging adults, with bisexuals and LGB-people of color at heightened risk of cumulative victimization and of related mental/behavioral health challenges.

Keywords: Bisexual; Childhood maltreatment; Cyber IPV; Emerging adults; Gay; IPV; Lesbian.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Adult
Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / psychology*
Bisexuality / psychology
Bullying / psychology
Child
Child Abuse / psychology*
Crime Victims / psychology
Depressive Disorder / psychology
Emotions / physiology*
Ethnicity
Female
Hispanic or Latino / statistics & numerical data
Homosexuality, Female / psychology
Humans
Intimate Partner Violence / psychology*
Male
Mental Disorders / psychology*
Mental Health
Prevalence
Retrospective Studies
Sexual and Gender Minorities / psychology
Sexuality / psychology*
Young Adult