Binge Drinking and Depression Symptoms as Risk Factors for Teen Dating Violence Among Sexual Minority Youth

Abstract

Purpose Given sexual minority youth (SMY) are disproportionately impacted by teen dating violence (TDV), this study assessed binge drinking and depression symptoms as possible risk factors contributing to this disparity. Methods Cross-sectional survey data collected from a nationally representative sample of SMY high school students in the United States in 2017 and 2019 through the national Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) (n = 3,424) was used to create 3 logistic regression models. The models estimated the associations between the exposures, binge drinking and depression symptoms, and TDV, including physical TDV, sexual TDV, or both. Additionally, we hypothesized that these associations would be stronger in SMY than heterosexual youth. Therefore, we expanded the study population to include SMY and heterosexual youth (n = 22,798) and tested for interaction. Results Both binge drinking (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 2.6, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.8–3.8) and symptoms of depression (aOR: 2.7, 95% CI: 1.8–4.02) were positively associated with TDV among SMY. Additionally, binge drinking was associated with a significantly greater risk of victimization for SMY (aOR = 2.7, 95% CI 1.9–3.9) than heterosexual youth (aOR = 1.5, 95% CI 1.2–2.0). Conclusions Our results suggest that while both exposures are associated with an increased risk of both physical and sexual TDV, binge drinking may contribute to the disparate rates of dating violence impacting SMY.