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Sex Concordance for Schizophrenia in Proband-relative Pairs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Elizabeth Sturt
Affiliation:
MRC Social Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry
Eric Shur
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF

Summary

Some hypotheses about the cause of schizophrenia are based on the puzzling tendency for mental illness to affect the same sex when two close relatives become psychiatrically ill. Sex-concordance rates were examined in 71 schizophrenic probands, who had at least one first-degree relative suffering from the same disorder, in order to test this tendency in a population of recently admitted patients. No unusual concordance rates were found when unaffected sibs were taken into account and relatives were stratified to take account of possible confounding factors. It would seem premature to construct hypotheses about the aetiology of schizophrenia based on evidence of this type.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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