Gender and first psychotic episodes in adolescence

• Autores: Beatriz Payá González, José López Gil
• Localización: Psychopathology in women: Incorporating gender perspective into descriptive psychopathology / coord. por Margarita Sáenz Herrero, 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-05869-6, págs. 611-620
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Gender-related differences in epidemiological and clinical variables of psychosis have long been recognized; however, data in first episodes of psychosis (FEPs) in subjects younger than 18 years old are scarce. Before the onset of psychosis, women are more likely to have a history of suicide attempts and depression, and they are more likely to have depressive symptoms. In samples of FEPs, a female preponderance for specific traumatic events such as sexual abuse and bullying is found.

    Men have a longer duration of untreated illness and poorer premorbid adjustment than women. Men also have substance use problems that were evident before admission and have a poorer response to antipsychotic medications and a poorer outcome than women.

    Overall findings suggest different pathways to the development of psychosis between adolescent men and women and point to the influence of gender over some of the predisposing factors in this age range. In addition to biological differences, gender seems to have an effect on the impact of individual risk factors or on the possibility of exposure to specific life events. Men seem to have more susceptibility to neurodevelopmental abnormalities as well as a predisposition to substance abuse. However, traumatic experiences as a risk factor for psychosis may carry greater weight in the female gender. For this reason, we should consider a female predominance in psychotic disorders associated with trauma.