Citation

Lin IH, Ko NY, Huang YT, Chen MH, Lu WH, Yen CF. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019; 16(18): e16183456.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung 80708, Taiwan. chfaye@cc.kmu.edu.tw.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph16183456

PMID

31533353

Abstract

Taiwan held voter-initiated referendums to determine same-sex marriage legalization on 24 November 2018. This study aims to compare suicidal ideation rates in heterosexual and nonheterosexual participants of a first-wave survey (Wave 1, 23 months before the same-sex marriage referendums) and a second-wave survey (Wave 2, one week after the same-sex marriage referendums) in Taiwan and to examine the influence of gender, age, and sexual orientation on the change in suicidal ideation rates in nonheterosexual participants.

In total, 3286 participants in Wave 1 and 1370 participants in Wave 2 were recruited through a Facebook advertisement. Each participant completed an online questionnaire assessing suicidal ideation. The proportions of heterosexual and nonheterosexual participants with suicidal ideation were compared between the Wave 1 and Wave 2 surveys. Suicidal ideation rates between participants in the Wave 1 and Wave 2 surveys were further compared by stratifying nonheterosexual participants according to gender, age, and sexual orientation.

Non-heterosexual participants in the Wave 2 survey had a higher suicidal ideation rate than those in the Wave 1 survey, whereas no difference was observed in suicidal ideation rates between heterosexual participants in Wave 2 and Wave 1. Nonheterosexual participants who were female, younger, gay, lesbian, and bisexual in Wave 2 had a higher suicidal ideation rate than those in Wave 1. The suicidal ideation rate significantly increased in nonheterosexual participants experiencing the same-sex marriage referendums in Taiwan. Whether civil rights of sexual minority individuals can be determined through referendums should be evaluated.

Language: en

Keywords

age; gender; same-sex marriage; sexual orientation; suicidality