Mental health and help-seeking in Czech sexual minorities: a nationally representative cross-sectional study

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00023752%3A_____%2F24%3A43921259" target="_blank" >RIV/00023752:_____/24:43921259 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-psychiatric-sciences/article/mental-health-and-helpseeking-in-czech-sexual-minorities-a-nationally-representative-crosssectional-study/C4C2EC2B0BC71BFC4F998150263AA387" target="_blank" >https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-psychiatric-sciences/article/mental-health-and-helpseeking-in-czech-sexual-minorities-a-nationally-representative-crosssectional-study/C4C2EC2B0BC71BFC4F998150263AA387</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S2045796024000210" target="_blank" >10.1017/S2045796024000210</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Mental health and help-seeking in Czech sexual minorities: a nationally representative cross-sectional study

Original language description

Aims: The mental health of sexual minority (SM) individuals remains overlooked and understudied in Czechia. We aimed to estimate (1) the prevalence rate and (2) the relative risk of common mental disorders and (3) the mental distress severity among the Czech SM people compared with the heterosexual population. In addition, we aimed to investigate help-seeking for mental disorders in SM people.Methods: We used data from a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of Czech community-dwelling adults, consisting of 3063 respondents (response rate = 58.62%). We used the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview to assess the presence of mental disorders. In individuals scoring positively, we established help-seeking in the past 12 months. We assessed symptom severity using the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale. We computed the prevalence of mental disorders and the treatment gap with 95% confidence intervals. To assess the risk of having a mental disorder, we used binary logistic regression.Results: We demonstrated that the prevalence of current mental disorders was 18.85% (17.43–20.28), 52.27% (36.91–67.63), 33.33% (19.5–47.17) and 25.93% (13.85–38) in heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual and more sexually diverse individuals, respectively. Suicidal thoughts and behaviours were present in 5.73% (4.88–6.57), 25.00% (11.68–38.32), 22.92% (10.58–35.25) and 11.11% (2.45–19.77) of heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual and more sexually diverse individuals, respectively. After confounder adjustment, gay or lesbian individuals were more likely to have at least one current mental disorder compared with heterosexual counterparts (odds ratio = 3.51; 1.83–6.76). For bisexual and sexually more diverse individuals, the results were consistent with a null effect (1.85; 0.96–3.45 and 0.89; 0.42–1.73). The mean depression symptom severity was 2.96 (2.81–3.11) in heterosexual people and 4.68 (2.95–6.42), 7.12 (5.07–9.18) and 5.17 (3.38–6.95) in gay or lesbian, bisexual and more sexually diverse individuals, respectively. The mean anxiety symptom severity was 1.97 (1.85–2.08) in heterosexual people and 3.5 (1.98–5.02), 4.63 (3.05–6.2) and 3.7 (2.29–5.11) in gay or lesbian, bisexual and more sexually diverse individuals, respectively. We demonstrated broadly consistent levels of treatment gap in heterosexual and SM individuals scoring positively for at least one current mental disorder (82.91%; 79.5–85.96 vs. 81.13%; 68.03–90.56).Conclusions: We provide evidence that SM people in Czechia have substantially worse mental health outcomes than their heterosexual counterparts. Systemic changes are imperative to provide not only better and more sensitive care to SM individuals but also to address structural stigma contributing to these health disparities.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

30215 - Psychiatry

Project

<a href="/en/project/NU22-D-134" target="_blank" >NU22-D-134: Changes in prevalence of mental disorders, utilization of care and attitudes towards mental disorders in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic: a representative cross-sectional study of the Czech adult population and secondary analysis of existing survey data</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2024

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences

ISSN

2045-7960

e-ISSN

2045-7979

Volume of the periodical

33

Issue of the periodical within the volume

e16

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

10

Pages from-to

1-10

UT code for WoS article

001192367600001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85188501568