Abstract
Gender differences in the frequency and severity of psychotic symptoms have been widely reported. However, in the screening process for the detection of early psychosis, gender differences were largely overlooked in China. This study investigated gender differences in self-reported psychotic symptoms in a clinical population who initially visited a mental health service. In total, 1931 consecutive new patients were included in the current analysis, with a mean age of 25.3 years, including 852 (44.1%) men and 1079 (55.9%) women, of whom 388 (20.1%) had psychotic disorders and 1543 (79.9%) had non-psychotic disorders. Psychotic symptoms were assessed using the PRIME Screen–Revised (PS-R) questionnaire. The cohort was grouped according to gender, age (adolescents ≤ 21 years, adults > 21 years), and clinical diagnosis. Within the full sample, gender differences in psychotic symptoms were not significant, except that females appeared to have more severe symptoms of disorganized communication than males. However, gender differences began to appear at subgroup levels, after stratification by age and diagnosis. Female adolescents reported more severe psychotic symptoms than male adolescents, especially in the symptom of perceptual abnormalities, which refer to hallucinations. Different patterns and predictors were found to significantly discriminate between psychotic and non-psychotic disorders among age and gender groups. Our study highlights gender differences in the severity, frequency, and pattern of self-reported psychotic symptoms when screening in a first help-seeking population. Therefore, gender differences should be considered during psychotic symptoms screening.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (TH. Z.) upon reasonable request.
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Funding
This study was supported by Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (19441907800, 19ZR1445200, 17411953100, 16JC1420200, No.2018SHZDZX01, 19410710800, 19411969100, 19411950800), Shanghai Clinical Research Center for Mental Health (19MC1911100), and The Clinical Research Center at Shanghai Mental Health Center (CRC2018ZD01, CRC2018ZD04), Project of the Key Discipline Construction, Shanghai 3-Year Public Health Action Plan (GWV-10.1-XK18).
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Dr. Q.H., Z.C., and Z.L. conceptualized the study, wrote the first draft of manuscript, and conducted the statistical analyses. LH.X., XC.T., and YY.W. interviewed participants and collected and organized the primary data. T.C., YG.H., and ZX.L. managed the literature searches, statistical analyses, and edited the manuscript. TH.Z., CB.L., and JJ.W. designed the study and provided supervision in the implementation of the study.
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Qiang Hu, Zheng Chen, Zheng Lin share first authorship.
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Hu, Q., Chen, Z., Lin, Z. et al. Gender differences in screening self-reported psychotic symptoms in a first help-seeking population. Arch Womens Ment Health 25, 291–299 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-021-01170-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-021-01170-z