Sexual Orientation Identity Change and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Analysis

Bethany Everett, University of Illinois at Chicago

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this study examines the relationship between changes in sexual orientation identity between adolescence and young adulthood and depressive symptoms. I employ multivariate regression, as well as propensity score matching techniques to examine the effect of not only identity change on mental health outcomes, but also how the effect of change varies by the propensity to change sexual orientation identities. The results reveal that only shifts toward more same-sex oriented identities are associated with increases in depressive symptoms and that the negative impacts of identity change are concentrated among individuals with the lowest propensity scores to change identities.