Even hospitals are not necessarily safe spaces for LGTQIA people.
Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth had a higher relative risk of mental health diagnoses and suicidality in the emergency department (ED) and inpatient settings.
This is according to a study – “Mental Health Diagnoses and Suicidality Among Transgender Youth in Hospital Settings” by Marissa Nunes-Moreno, Anna Furniss, Samuel Cortez, et al – that appeared in LGBT Health
Here, the researchers wanted to describe the most common mental health diagnoses in the ED and inpatient hospital settings among TGD youth vs. matched controls; and evaluate if a gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) or gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRHa) prescription decreased the risk of suicidality within these settings.
The researchers used the PEDSnet dataset (years 2009–2019), involving TGD youth aged 8–18 (n = 3414, with a median age at last visit of 16.2 years, were propensity-score matched to controls (n = 13,628, age 16.6 years). Relative risks of the most common mental health diagnoses within ED and inpatient settings were calculated for TGD youth compared with controls. Recurrent time-to-event analysis was used to examine whether GAHT or GnRHa attenuated the risk of suicidality among subsamples of TGD youth.
The researchers found:
- TGD youth had a higher relative risk of mental health diagnoses and suicidality in the ED and inpatient settings than matched controls.
- TGD youth prescribed GAHT had a 43.6% lower risk of suicidality compared with those never prescribed GAHT during the study period or before GAHT initiation.
- TGD youth who were prescribed GnRHa therapy had a nonstatistically significant reduction in ED or inpatient suicidality diagnoses compared with those never prescribed GnRHa.
The researchers did not only stress that the risk of mental health diagnoses and suicidality was high in ED and inpatient settings, but that “among TGD youth, a GAHT prescription was associated with a significant reduction in suicidality risk.”
