Gay and lesbian adults who have developed a stronger, more settled sense of their sexual identity tend to report lower levels of depression and anxiety.
This is according to a study — “Associations between sexual identity and depression and anxiety in Chinese lesbian and gay individuals: the mediating effect of psychological flexibility” by Xing Meng, Xinhan Xu, Shimin Chen, Xianxin Meng and Shuling Gao — that was published in Current Psychology.
A total of 547 lesbian and gay individuals in China were recruited to participate in a study assessing their sexual identity, psychological flexibility, depression, and anxiety. Participants completed a series of online questionnaires, including the Homosexual Identity Scale, the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale. The mediation analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM) in SPSS 21.0.
Key findings included:
- Participants with a more developed sexual identity reported fewer symptoms of both depression and anxiety.
- When it came to depression, this protective effect worked in two ways: sexual identity had a direct link to lower depression, and it also worked indirectly by boosting psychological flexibility, which in turn reduced depressive symptoms.
- For anxiety, the pattern looked slightly different – i.e. sexual identity on its own showed no significant direct link to anxiety once other factors were accounted for. But its entire protective effect appeared to work through psychological flexibility, meaning that a stronger sexual identity helped people become more psychologically flexible, and it was that flexibility which then eased anxiety symptoms.
- Women in the sample reported stronger sexual identity affirmation than men, a pattern that echoes findings from other research settings.
For the researchers, the findings carry practical implications for mental health support and LGBT-affirmative practice by suggesting that helping people build a secure, integrated sexual identity, alongside teaching skills that foster psychological flexibility such as acceptance-based approaches, could form an effective two-pronged strategy for reducing depression and anxiety in gay and lesbian populations.
“This study highlights the importance of developing sexual identity and enhancing psychological flexibility in order to improve the mental health of… lesbian and gay individuals. Consequently, intervention programs that incorporate these protective factors — sexual identity affirmation and psychological flexibility — may prove efficacious in enhancing mental health outcomes among this population,” the researchers stated.
