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Mental health
Mental health nurses can play a key role in supporting gay, bisexual and two-spirit men experiencing mental health challenges and inequalities
  1. Elizabeth Hughes1,
  2. Elizabeth Mcdermott2
  1. 1 School of Healthcare, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
  2. 2 Health Research, Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
  1. Correspondence to Professor Elizabeth Hughes, School of Healthcare, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK; E.C.Hughes{at}leeds.ac.uk

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Commentary on: Ferlatte O, Oliffe JL, Louie DR, et al. Suicide prevention from the perspectives of gay, bisexual, and two-spirit men. Qual Health Res 2018;29:1186-98. ePub Dec 14. doi.10.1177/1049732318816082

Implications for practice and research

  • People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer have poorer mental health and increased risk of suicide than their heterosexual peers.

  • A significant factor in this health inequality is the experience of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

  • Future research should evaluate the impact of these suggested interventions and strategies.

Context

People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and transgender (LGBTQ) experience significant inequalities in health and mental health compared with their peers who identify as ‘straight’ (heterosexual).1–3 The rates of depression and suicidality are especially concerning with the risk of suicide in LGBTQ, which is twice as high. The reasons for this are multifactorial, but one theory …

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Footnotes

  • Competing interests EM and EH have together received funding from the Policy Research Programme and the National Institute for Health Research to undertake research that examines mental health issues for young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and transgender. They have published on this topic in peer-reviewed journals.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.