Parent versus child report of children's sexual orientation: associations with psychiatric morbidity in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study

Abstract

PurposeWe sought to document the association between parent’s report and their child’s report of the child’s sexual orientation and associations between this agreement/disagreement and the child’s psychiatric morbidity. MethodsData were drawn from 11,565 parent–child dyads who completed the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (2016-2018; children ages 9-10 years). Whether the child was “gay or bisexual” was asked separately of parent and child. We created four categories: (1) Concordant No; (2) Discordant: Parent Yes/Maybe, Child No/Unclear; (3) Discordant: Parent No, Child Yes/Maybe; (4) Concordant Yes/Maybe. Parents reported their child’s lifetime psychiatric morbidity (i.e., depression, anxiety, ADHD, ODD, OCD, PTSD, eating disorder, and conduct disorder). ResultsOf parent–child dyads, 960 (7.9%) disagreed about the child’s sexual orientation; the Concordant No dyads reported the lowest psychiatric morbidity compared with the other three dyad groups. Child psychiatric morbidity among the Discordant: Parent Yes/Maybe dyads compared with the Concordant No dyads was elevated across all disorders except PTSD (e.g., depression [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.20, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.51-3.21], anxiety [aOR = 1.63, 95% CI: 1.38-1.92], and eating disorder [aOR = 2.63, 95% CI: 1.39-4.68]). ConclusionsThe sexual orientation disparity in psychiatric morbidity begins in childhood. Parent–child agreement/disagreement of children’s sexual orientation represents a potential marker of this early vulnerability.