Alcohol and illicit drug use among gay, lesbian and bisexual: A literature review

This exhaustive literature review focuses on substance use and abuse (alcohol and illicit drugs) among gays, lesbians and bisexuals (LGB). It also describes the association between drinking patterns, coming-out and bars or social environment. Articles were selected from major English and French medical and humanities databases. On the 468 selected articles across databases, 112 were manually examined and 45 were selected for the review. Results show a more frequent alcohol and illicit drug use among homosexual than heterosexual men, but this difference is not significant at a problematic level of use. There is also a significant difference between lesbian and heterosexual women at a regular and problematic level of use. Considering the coming-out process, three empirical hypotheses are presented to explain a problematic psychoactive substance use. The influences of social environment are presented and seem to play their part as a risk factor. In a public health perspective, all these data show the importance to consider LGB population as a group risk, with a need for accommodation in treatment settings. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.