The Impact of COVID-19 on Depressive Symptoms through the Lens of Sexual Orientation

Abstract

This research seeks to explore the impact of COVID-19 on depressive symptoms, analyzing discrepancies of sexual orientation in a Portuguese-speaking sample. 1590 individuals participated, of which 63% were women, and 88% self-identified as straight. Participants responded to the depression sub-scale of the Beck Symptoms Iventory-18, the fear of COVID-19 scale and the COVID-19 negative impact scale. Depressive symptoms observed were higher than expected, and several significant differences were obtained: women and self-identified bisexual participants had higher levels of depressive symptoms compared to male and straight and gay or lesbian participants. Depressive symptoms negatively correlated with age and positively correlated with COVID-19 aggravated responses, fear of COVID-19, and negative impact of COVID-19. Hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that age, gender and sexual orientation explained 6% of the variance of depressive symptoms, and when fear and the negative impact of COVID-19 was added, the model explained 23% of results. This study provides an important contribution to the understanding of factors arising from the pandemic that may have an impact on the mental health of sexual minorities.

Psychosocial Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People Living in Portugal and Brazil—A Qualitative Study

“…These psychosocial circumstances may have increased the existing vulnerabilities of this population. Our study confirms previous data from Portugal and Brazil 70,71 concerning the impact of COVID-19 among LGBTIQ population on mental health and work-related quality of life, and this may have conditioned the access to health care services, through the anticipation of rejection and fear of the disease. On the other hand, the fact that many families do not accept their LGBTIQ family members, led many of our participants to go back into the closet, and this is not without relevant psychosocial consequences, such as LGBTIQ identity erasure on the existing heteronormative culture and exposure to sexual stigma.…”

Sexual Minority Orientation Is Associated With Greater Psychological Impact Due to the COVID-19 Crisis—Evidence From a Longitudinal Cohort Study of Young Swiss Men

“…Recent research has indicated that members of sexual minority groups have suffered a high psychological impact from the crisis (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31), but these studies were done in samples of sexual minority people only and, therefore, that impact cannot be compared with the psychological impact suffered by the heterosexual people also affected by the crisis (32). Seven studies with online recruited convenience samples from the United States of America (9,(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38) and one online study conducted in Portugal and Brazil (39) comparing sexual minorities and heterosexual persons found that the psychological impacts among members of sexual minorities were greater. A prospective cohort study in Southern California also found that sexual minorities reported more negative coping strategies with respect to the COVID-19 crisis compared to heterosexual individuals (40).…”

Sexual life of Spanish women during the lockdown by COVID-19: Differences according to sexual orientation?

“…Some previous studies observed that sexual minorities, in general, presented worse mental health than the heterosexual population during lockdown ( Duarte & Pereira, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2022 ). In our study, we focused only on women and it seems that the differences are less clear, since no statistically significant differences were observed.…”