Social Support and Internalizing Psychopathology Among Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals: A Meta-Analysis

• DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/ep6sf_v1
• Publication Date: 2025-02-10T07:53:53Z
• Authors: Benjamin A Katz; Mertcan Mutlu; Geva Shenkman

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals often suffer from a myriad of stressors within their social environments due to stigma its outcomes (Meyer, 2003). Conversely, support may impact SGM individuals’ psychological resilience. To quantify the interpersonal environments, current preregistered meta-analysis included 181 studies (N = 75,376) that reported associations between (i.e., family, peer, partner, school, work) internalizing psychopathology depression, anxiety, nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidality) among samples. Overall, small, negative association was observed, r -.26, with depression’s being significantly larger than other categories, -.30. Smaller effects were observed for samples share bisexual when SGM-specific measure used. Otherwise, robust demographic factors (e.g., age, gender, % white), identity minority), source support, levels structural stigma. No evidence publication bias observed. This finding suggests all forms are similarly complimentarily associated lower psychopathology.