Department of Nursing, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States.
Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, United States.
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2022 May 30;8(5):e34710. doi: 10.2196/34710.
Sexual and gender minority (SGM; people whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual or whose gender identity varies from what is traditionally associated with the sex assigned to them at birth) people experience high rates of trauma and substantial disparities in anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Exposure to traumatic stressors such as news related to COVID-19 may be associated with symptoms of anxiety and PTSD.
This study aims to evaluate the relationship of COVID-19 news exposure with anxiety and PTSD symptoms in a sample of SGM adults in the United States.
Data were collected between March 23 and August 2, 2020, from The PRIDE Study, a national longitudinal cohort study of SGM people. Regression analyses were used to analyze the relationship between self-reported news exposure and symptoms of anxiety using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 and symptoms of COVID-19-related PTSD using the Impact of Events Scale-Revised.
Our sample included a total of 3079 SGM participants. Each unit increase in COVID-19-related news exposure was associated with greater anxiety symptoms (odds ratio 1.77, 95% CI 1.63-1.93; P<.001) and 1.93 greater odds of PTSD (95% CI 1.74-2.14; P<.001).
Our study found that COVID-19 news exposure was positively associated with greater symptoms of anxiety and PTSD among SGM people. This supports previous literature in other populations where greater news exposure was associated with poorer mental health. Further research is needed to determine the direction of this relationship and to evaluate for differences among SGM subgroups with multiple marginalized identities.
性少数群体和跨性别者（SGM；性取向非异性恋或性别认同与出生时赋予的性别传统不符的人）经历高创伤率和焦虑症及创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）的巨大差异。接触到创伤性应激源，如与 COVID-19 相关的新闻，可能与焦虑和 PTSD 症状有关。
本研究旨在评估 COVID-19 新闻接触与美国 SGM 成年人焦虑和 PTSD 症状之间的关系。
数据于 2020 年 3 月 23 日至 8 月 2 日在 PRIDE 研究中收集，这是一项针对 SGM 人群的全国性纵向队列研究。回归分析用于分析自我报告的新闻接触与焦虑症状之间的关系，使用广泛性焦虑障碍-7 量表，与 COVID-19 相关 PTSD 症状使用修订后的事件影响量表。
我们的样本共包括 3079 名 SGM 参与者。每增加一个单位的 COVID-19 相关新闻接触与更大的焦虑症状相关（比值比 1.77，95%置信区间 1.63-1.93；P<.001），与 PTSD 的几率增加 1.93 倍（95%置信区间 1.74-2.14；P<.001）。
我们的研究发现，COVID-19 新闻接触与 SGM 人群焦虑和 PTSD 症状增加呈正相关。这支持了其他人群中接触更多新闻与心理健康较差相关的先前文献。需要进一步研究以确定这种关系的方向，并评估具有多种边缘化身份的 SGM 亚群之间的差异。
