Sexual orientation concealment and mental health: A conceptual and meta-analytic review.

ABSTRACT: Identity concealment affects all sexual minority individuals, with potentially complex mental health implications. Concealing a sexual minority identity can simultaneously generate the stress of hiding, protect against the stress of discrimination, and keep one apart from sexual minority communities and their norms and supports. Not surprisingly, existing studies of the association between sexual orientation concealment and mental health problems show contradictory associations-from positive to negative to null. This meta-analysis attempts to resolve these contradictions. Across 193 studies (n = 92,236) we find a small positive association between sexual orientation concealment and internalizing mental health problems (i.e., depression, anxiety, distress, problematic eating; ESr = 0

SUBMITTER: Pachankis JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8011357 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature