Sexual-minority women (SMW) report higher rates of substance use and disorder across the life span and greater levels of minority stress in adolescence and young adulthood. Minority stress mediation models propose that higher levels of social stressors may increase emotion dysregulation, which in turn increases the propensity toward substance misuse. Few studies, however, have prospectively examined the impact of stressors and emotion dysregulation among SMW on early and escalating substance use. In this longitudinal study, we examined whether emotion dysregulation and social stress mediated the association between sexual-minority status and developing substance use (ages 17–22) in a sample of 2,201 heterosexual and 246 SMW participants in the Pittsburgh Girls Study. Results supported serial mediation processes of marijuana-use risk: SMW reported higher levels of social stress in late adolescence, which in turn predicted greater emotion dysregulation that was associated with greater marijuana use by young adulthood.

性少数女性 (SMW) 报告称，其一生中药物滥用和精神障碍发生率较高，青春期和成年早期的少数压力更大。少数人压力调解模型提出，较高水平的社会压力可能会增加情绪失调，进而增加药物滥用的倾向。然而，很少有研究前瞻性地研究了 SMW 中的压力源和情绪失调对早期和不断增加的物质使用的影响。在这项纵向研究中，我们在匹兹堡女孩研究中以 2,201 名异性恋者和 246 名 SMW 参与者为样本，研究了情绪失调和社会压力是否介导了性少数地位与发展中的物质使用（17-22 岁）之间的关联。结果支持了大麻使用风险的一系列中介过程：SMW 报告说，青春期后期的社会压力水平较高，这反过来又预示着更大的情绪失调，而这与成年早期吸食更多大麻有关。