Evaluation of self-esteem among homosexuals in the southern region of the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil Avaliação da autoestima de gays do sul de Santa Catarina, Brasil

This study seeks to evaluate self-esteem in homosexuals from southern Santa Catarina and relate it to several variables such as gender, age, bullying and psychiatric treatment. Participants were selected using the " Snowball " technique. The Rosenberg self-esteem scale was used for self-esteem assessment with subsequent comparison with other variables. A total of 403 individuals were interviewed, including 310 males with a mean age of 24.02. Most of the population studied (80.9%) had high self-esteem, with a mean score of 5.55 on the Rosenberg scale. Individuals who had only studied up to primary school level, were unemployed, evangelicals, with a history of psy-chotherapeutic and psychiatric treatment, or who had been subjected to bullying in the last year and those who wished to change their sexual orientation , had significantly lower self-esteem than the others. 114 people had used psychotropic drugs, 47.58% of which were benzodiazepine-based, primarily Clonazepam (27.58%). Most of this population had high self-esteem. There was a difference between some categories of the variables studied, however, all averages corresponded to high self-esteem on the Rosenberg scale. Benzodiazepines were the psychotropic drugs most often used by the individuals in this study.