Research indicates that stress and its concomitant negative mental health and physical health outcomes are direct results of pandemic episodes1. Stress related to COVID-19 is no exception2 3 4. We argue that this stress ? which we term COVID-19 stress ? is temporally and proximally related to increases in HED and IPV perpetration in sexual and gender minority (SGM) couples. This focus on SGM couples is purposeful. Because the COVID-19 pandemic poses greater economic, social, and personal challenges for SGM people 5, they must cope with both COVID-19 stress and well-established minority stressors 6. Thus, they are more likely to engage in maladaptive coping behaviors, including HED and IPV, relative to cisgender, heterosexual people. There are myriad weaknesses in the rigor of research on HED and/or IPV in SGM couples, which include: (1) few studies which distinguish between sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, and gender identity; (2) inadequate sample sizes of gender minorities; (3) poor operational definitions, and thus weak measurement, of HED and IPV; and (4) dependence on cross-sectional study designs which cannot model the temporal relation between relevant risk factors and HED or IPV perpetration. Our team is uniquely positioned to address these weaknesses via two aims: (1) evaluate the impact of COVID-19 stress and SGM stress on HED and IPV perpetration, and (2) evaluate a brief, low-resource intervention to mitigate the effects of these stressors.
These aims will be achieved by using a longitudinal measurement burst daily diary design that includes four 14- day bursts with three 14-day intervals between each burst. During Intervals #2 and #3, participants will be randomly assigned to receive (1) two daily CBT-based text messages that focuses on emotion regulation, distress tolerance skills, and/or alcohol reduction strategies, (2) two daily text messages that serve as an attention control, or (3) no text messages. Our sample of 240 couples will be comprised of 120 couples in which both partners identify as cisgender and a sexual minority and 120 couples in which at least one partner identifies as a gender minority, meaning one?s gender identity is non-congruent with the sex they were assigned at birth. Effects will be examined within an Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling framework, which will allow for valid analysis of both partners? intersecting identities as well as risk and resilience factors at the individual- and couple-level. Expansion of the parent grant via the proposed urgent competitive revision has high potential to inform how pandemic stress contributes to etiological models of alcohol-related IPV perpetration in SGM couples and inform a culturally-sensitive, low burden, and easy to disseminate intervention to mitigate these effects critical during a pandemic when access to care is limited. As such, this project has high potential to impact public health, particularly in vulnerable SGM communities during a pandemic.
In the proposed competitive revision, we will recruit additional couples in which at least one partner identifies as a gender minority and leverage the parent grant?s intensive longitudinal design in order to evaluate (1) the impact of COVID-19 stress and sexual and gender minority stress on heavy episodic drinking and intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, and (2) evaluate a brief, low-resource intervention to mitigate the effects of these stressors. Expansion of the parent grant via the proposed urgent competitive revision has high potential to inform how pandemic stress contributes to etiological models of alcohol-related IPV perpetration in SGM couples and inform a culturally-sensitive, low burden, and easy to disseminate intervention to mitigate these effects critical during a pandemic when access to care is limited.
