Trajectories of psychopathology and sleep quality during a collective stressful event: The role of sexual minority identity, personality, and emotion regulation

The first two years of COVID-19 triggered a significant and widespread set of stressors, which disproportionately affected minoritized populations. This study utilized the Boston College COVID-19 Sleep and Well-Being Dataset to examine changes in depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance during a collective stressful event (CSE). Data was examined over four periods spanning from May 2020 to October 2021. Latent growth mixture modeling (LGMM) was used to identify discrete growth trajectories of the outcome measures and test for covariates associated with each trajectory. Two distinct symptom trajectory classes emerged for both sleep quality and anxiety (chronic symptoms and resilience) and three classes for depression (recovery, delayed symptoms, and resilience). Neuroticism was inversely associated with resilience to depression, anxiety, and sleep difficulties. Sexual minority (SM) individuals were more likely to be categorized in the chronic trajectory for sleep difficulties and depression. These findings suggest that during periods of widespread chronic stress, SMs might experience disproportionate negative mental and behavioral health outcomes.