Psychotic experiences, sexual minority status, and suicidal behavior among young adult college students in the United States

Psychotic experiences significantly predict suicidal behaviors; however, it is unknown whether these associations are conditional on sexual minority status. We analyzed cross-sectional data from the Healthy Minds Study (N = 109,975), which was collected between September 2020 and June 2021 from young adult (aged 18–34) students from across 140 colleges across the United States. Having psychotic experiences and sexual minority status were associated with significantly greater odds of reporting suicidal ideation, suicide plan, and suicide attempt, adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. We found significant interactions between psychotic experiences and sexual minority status, such that the relations between psychotic experiences and suicidal behaviors were stronger among heterosexual students than among sexual minority students. However, the interactions disappeared for suicidal ideation and plans after adjusting for socio-behavioral risk factors. Future research can explore whether psychotic experiences predict suicide attempts among sexual minority status behavior socio-behavioral risk factors.