RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Family outcome disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual families: a systematic review and meta-analysis
JF BMJ Global Health
JO BMJ Global Health
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP e010556
DO 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-010556
VO 8
IS 3
A1 Yun Zhang
A1 Haimei Huang
A1 Min Wang
A1 Jiawen Zhu
A1 Sumin Tan
A1 Weiyi Tian
A1 Jinli Mo
A1 Li Jiang
A1 Jieling Mo
A1 Wei Pan
A1 Chuanyi Ning
YR 2023
UL http://gh.bmj.com/content/8/3/e010556.abstract
AB Background The number of children in sexual minority parent families has increased. This systematic review aims to synthesise the evidence of disparities in family outcomes between sexual minority and heterosexual families and to identify specific social risk factors of poor family outcomes.Methods We systematically searched PubMed, the Web of Science, Embase, the Cochrane Library and APA PsycNet for original studies that compared family outcomes between sexual minority and heterosexual families. Two reviewers independently selected studies and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Narrative synthesis and meta-analysis were conducted to synthesise evidence.Results Thirty-four articles were included. The narrative synthesis results revealed several significant findings for children’s gender role behaviour and gender identity/sexual orientation outcomes. Overall, 16 of 34 studies were included in the meta-analyses. The quantitative synthesis results suggested that sexual minority families may perform better in children’s psychological adjustment and parent–child relationship than heterosexual families (standardised mean difference (SMD) −0.13, 95% CI −0.20 to −0.05; SMD 0.13, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.20), but not couple relationship satisfaction (SMD 0.26, 95% CI −0.13 to 0.64), parental mental health (SMD 0.00, 95% CI −0.16 to 0.16), parenting stress (SMD 0.01, 95% CI −0.20 to 0.22) or family functioning (SMD 0.18, 95% CI −0.11 to 0.46).Conclusion Most of the family outcomes are similar between sexual minority and heterosexual families, and sexual minority families have even better outcomes in some domains. Relevant social risk factors of poor family outcomes included stigma and discrimination, poor social support and marital status, etc. The next step is to integrate multiple aspects of support and multilevel interventions to reduce the adverse effects on family outcomes with a long-term goal of influencing policy and law making for better services to individuals, families, communities and schools.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.