健康与遗传心理学研究室知识库

Background: Many studies have indicated a gender-specific effect in many aspects of schizophrenia. The presence of depressive symptomatology exists in all phase of schizophrenia patients. The aim of this study is to investigate the gender difference in the proportion of comorbid depressive symptoms and gender-specific relationships between depressive symptoms and clinical correlates in Chinese never-treated first-episode (NTFE) patients with schizophrenia, which have not been reported yet.

Method: Using the cross-sectional design, 240 NTFE inpatients (males/females = 111/129) meeting DSM-IV criteria of schizophrenia were recruited. The Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) was used for the psychopathology and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) for the comorbid depressive symptoms. This study was conducted from June 2013 to December 2015.

Results: The proportion of patients with depressive symptoms (total score in HDRS-17 ≥ 8) in male is significantly higher than in female (male: 62.2%, female: 48.1%; c2 = 4.28, df = 1, p = 0.039). Male patients had significantly greater depressive symptoms shown on HDRS than female patients (t = 2.75, df = 1, 238, p = 0.006). Further, we found that age, the age of onset, smoking rate, and PANSS total, general psychopathology, negative symptoms, and cognitive factor subscale scores favored significant gender differences in female patients (all p<0.05). Interestingly, we found gender differences in the correlation between the HDRS score and clinical phenotype, showing that in male patients, the PANSS general psychopathology subscore (beta = 0.75, t = 7.72, p = 0000) and PANSS total score (beta = 0.44, t = 4.81, p = 0.000) significantly predicted the HDRS-17 total score, while in female patients, the PANSS general psychopathology subscore (beta = 0.74, t = 8.45, p = 0000) and the PANSS total score (beta = 0.47, t = 5.71, p = 0.000), the PANSS cognitive factor (beta = 0.24, t = 2.60, p = 0.011) significantly predicted the HDRS-17 total score.

Conclusions: Our results indicate gender differences in the frequency and severity of comorbid depressive symptoms, as well as in associations between depressive symptoms and clinical correlates in NTFE schizophrenia.