Mental health of transgender youth in care at an adolescent urban community health center: A matched retrospective cohort study

By S. Reisner, Ralph Vetters, M. Leclerc, S. Zaslow, Sarah G Wolfrum, Daniel E Shumer, M. Mimiaga. Journal of Adolescent Health, 2015

626 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Purpose Transgender youth represent a vulnerable population at risk for negative mental health outcomes including depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicidality. Limited data exists to compare the mental health of transgender adolescents and emerging adults to cisgender youth accessing community-based clinical services; the current study aimed to fill this gap. Methods A retrospective cohort study of electronic health record (EHR) data from 180 transgender patients age 12–29 years seen between 2002–2011 at a Boston-based community health center was performed. The 106 female-to-male (FTM) and 74 male-to-female (MTF) patients were matched on gender identity, age, visit date, and race/ethnicity to cisgender controls. Mental health outcomes were extracted and analyzed using conditional logistic regression models. Logistic regression models compared FTM to MTF youth on mental health outcomes. Results The sample (n=360) had a mean age of 19.6 (SD=3.0); 43% white, 33% racial/ethnic minority, and 24% race/ethnicity unknown. Compared to cisgender matched controls, transgender youth had a two- to three-fold increased risk of depression, anxiety disorder, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, self-harm without lethal intent, and both inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment (all p<0.05). No statistically significant differences in mental health outcomes were observed comparing FTM and MTF patients, adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, and hormone use. Conclusions Transgender youth were found to have a disparity in negative mental health outcomes compared to cisgender youth, with equally high burden in FTM and MTF patients. Identifying gender identity differences in clinical settings and providing appropriate services and supports are important steps in addressing this disparity.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b6c38259b8e31ab23ab7e175d493eb177b0186e5

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Citations in the corpus

Teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and supportive behaviors toward LGBT students: Relationship to Gay-Straight Alliances, antibullying policy, and teacher training (2016, result): “In another study, transgender youth at a community health center evidenced a significantly greater risk of suicidal ideation and suicide attempt compared with cisgender-matched controls (Reisner et al., 2015).”
Prevalence of anxiety symptoms and disorders in the transgender population: A systematic review of the literature (2017, methodology): “It is possible that, because of the time-consuming tools used (interviews), these studies, with the exception of one study (Reisner et al., 2015), did not compare their findings with a matched cis control group.”
A critical commentary on ‘rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ (2020, result): “Contrary to assumption, the rates of mental health issues reported in both studies were in no way abnormal given what is known of trans mental health (Dhejne et al., 2016; James et al., 2016; Reisner et al., 2015).”
Prepubertal social gender transitions: What we know; what we can learn—A view from a gender affirmative lens (2018, background): “…to prior data derived from studies of older adolescent and adult transgender populations who were not able to socially transition in childhood that indicate significantly increased rates of anxiety and depression, including suicide attempts (Budge, Adelson, & Howard, 2013; Reisner et al., 2015).”
The Relationship Between Family Acceptance-Rejection and Transgender Youth Psychosocial Functioning (2019, positive): “Research has found that they frequently exhibit more depressive symptoms, anxiety, and suicidal ideation than their cisgen-der peers (e.g., Reisner et al., 2015).”
Transgender and anxiety: A comparative study between transgender people and the general population (2017, background): “Research in the transgender population before treatment, using cross-sectional data, have shown high levels of anxiety symptomatology in this population (Bockting et al., 2013; De Vries, Doreleijers, Steensma, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2011; Heylens et al., 2014a; Reisner et al., 2015; Davey et al., 2016).”