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Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Adolescents who identify as nonbinary gender or as not heterosexual report higher levels of mental illness than their counterparts. Cannabis use is a commonly employed strategy to cope with mental illness symptoms among adolescents; however, cannabis use can have many deleterious he...

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Autores principales: Buttazzoni, Adrian, Tariq, Ulaina, Thompson-Haile, Audra, Burkhalter, Robin, Cooke, Martin, Minaker, Leia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7791274/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33103513
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1090198120965509
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author Buttazzoni, Adrian
Tariq, Ulaina
Thompson-Haile, Audra
Burkhalter, Robin
Cooke, Martin
Minaker, Leia
author_facet Buttazzoni, Adrian
Tariq, Ulaina
Thompson-Haile, Audra
Burkhalter, Robin
Cooke, Martin
Minaker, Leia
author_sort Buttazzoni, Adrian
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND/AIMS: Adolescents who identify as nonbinary gender or as not heterosexual report higher levels of mental illness than their counterparts. Cannabis use is a commonly employed strategy to cope with mental illness symptoms among adolescents; however, cannabis use can have many deleterious health consequences for youth. Within the frame of minority stress theory, this study investigates the relationships between gender identity and sexual orientation, internalizing disorder symptoms, and cannabis use among adolescents. METHOD: A national cross-sectional survey of a generalizable sample of high school students in Canada from the 2017 wave (N = 15,191) of the Cancer Risk Assessment in Youth Survey was analyzed in spring 2019. Mediation analyses were completed to examine risk of internalizing disorder symptoms as a potential mediator of the association between (1) gender identity and (2) sexual orientation, and cannabis use. RESULTS: Indirect effects in all models show significantly higher levels of reported internalizing disorder symptoms for female (OR = 3.44, 95% CI [2.84, 4.18]) and nonbinary gender (OR = 3.75, 95% CI [2.16, 6.51]) compared with male students. Sexual minority adolescents had higher odds of internalizing disorder risk relative to non–sexual minority adolescents (OR = 3.13, 95% CI [2.63, 3.74]). Students who reported higher rates of internalizing disorder symptoms were more likely to have ever used cannabis. Patterns of partial mediation are also present among all groups. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS: Findings can be used to better inform mental health interventions for adolescents. Future study should explore specific mental health stressors of vulnerable adolescent groups with respect to cannabis use as a coping mechanism.
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spelling pubmed-77912742021-01-21 Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk Buttazzoni, Adrian Tariq, Ulaina Thompson-Haile, Audra Burkhalter, Robin Cooke, Martin Minaker, Leia Health Educ Behav Gender, Identity, and Health BACKGROUND/AIMS: Adolescents who identify as nonbinary gender or as not heterosexual report higher levels of mental illness than their counterparts. Cannabis use is a commonly employed strategy to cope with mental illness symptoms among adolescents; however, cannabis use can have many deleterious health consequences for youth. Within the frame of minority stress theory, this study investigates the relationships between gender identity and sexual orientation, internalizing disorder symptoms, and cannabis use among adolescents. METHOD: A national cross-sectional survey of a generalizable sample of high school students in Canada from the 2017 wave (N = 15,191) of the Cancer Risk Assessment in Youth Survey was analyzed in spring 2019. Mediation analyses were completed to examine risk of internalizing disorder symptoms as a potential mediator of the association between (1) gender identity and (2) sexual orientation, and cannabis use. RESULTS: Indirect effects in all models show significantly higher levels of reported internalizing disorder symptoms for female (OR = 3.44, 95% CI [2.84, 4.18]) and nonbinary gender (OR = 3.75, 95% CI [2.16, 6.51]) compared with male students. Sexual minority adolescents had higher odds of internalizing disorder risk relative to non–sexual minority adolescents (OR = 3.13, 95% CI [2.63, 3.74]). Students who reported higher rates of internalizing disorder symptoms were more likely to have ever used cannabis. Patterns of partial mediation are also present among all groups. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS: Findings can be used to better inform mental health interventions for adolescents. Future study should explore specific mental health stressors of vulnerable adolescent groups with respect to cannabis use as a coping mechanism. SAGE Publications 2020-10-26 2021-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7791274/ /pubmed/33103513 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1090198120965509 Text en © 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Gender, Identity, and Health
Buttazzoni, Adrian
Tariq, Ulaina
Thompson-Haile, Audra
Burkhalter, Robin
Cooke, Martin
Minaker, Leia
Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk
title Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk
title_full Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk
title_fullStr Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk
title_full_unstemmed Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk
title_short Adolescent Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Cannabis Use: Potential Mediations by Internalizing Disorder Risk
title_sort adolescent gender identity, sexual orientation, and cannabis use: potential mediations by internalizing disorder risk
topic Gender, Identity, and Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7791274/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33103513
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1090198120965509
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