One third of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth have attempted suicide in their lifetime, but most of them are mentally strong, new U.S. research suggests. A team at the University of Illinois at Chicago conducted psychiatric interviews with 246 ethnically diverse LGBT youth, aged 16-20, to tax them for major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), conduct disorder and suicide attempts.
About 70 percent of the youth met no criteria for any mental disorders, but 15 percent met criteria for major despair and nearly 10 percent met criteria for PTSD. The study found that one-third of the youths had made a suicide attempt at some point in their life, and 6 percent had made a suicide attempt in the last year. The occurrence of mental disorders among LGBT youth was higher than that in the general population, but comparable to that of urban and alternative youth, the researchers noted."One of the most important findings from our work is that most of these [LGBT] youth are doing very well and are not experiencing mental health problems,
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