Stressors and Drinking in Sexual Minority Women: The Mediating Role of Emotion Dysregulation

Sexual minority women (SMW) are at elevated risk for exposure to stressors (both traumatic and discriminatory) and have higher rates of alcohol consumption and problems. The psychological mediation framework (Hatzenbuehler, 2009) suggests that both general (e.g., traumatic events to which minorities and nonminorities may be exposed) and minority-group-specific (e.g., discrimination) stressors contribute to psychopathology through mediators such as emotion dysregulation. Guided by this framework, the present study longitudinally examined the relationship between stressors and problematic drinking outcomes (i.e., binge drinking and alcohol-related problems), as mediated by emotion dysregulation, in SMW. It addressed 2 research questions: (a) whether stressors longitudinally predict problematic drinking outcomes in SMW, as mediated by emotion dysregulation, and (b) for which specific forms of stressor (i.e., traumatic events and/or discrimination) this mediational relationship is present. Young adult women (N = 1,057) who identified as lesbian or bisexual completed annual measures of daily heterosexism, traumas, and drinking outcomes for 4 years and completed a measure of emotion dysregulation during the third year of data collection. We found an indirect relationship between discrimination and problematic drinking outcomes via emotion dysregulation. These findings are consistent with the psychological mediation framework (Hatzenbuehler, 2009) and suggest that SMW group-specific processes such as discrimination may be especially important in conferring risk for problem drinking via emotion dysregulation. Clinicians are advised to assess unique stressors faced by SMW and their potential contribution to problematic drinking outcomes and to target emotion dysregulation in alcohol treatments.