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Gender Differences in Age at Onset of Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Stephen V. Faraone ,
Wei J. Chen ,
Jill M. Goldstein  and
Ming T. Tsuang
Stephen V. Faraone*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Brockton-West Roxbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Wei J. Chen
Affiliation:
Institute of Public Health, National Taiwan University College of Medicine
Jill M. Goldstein
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
Ming T. Tsuang
Affiliation:
Division of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Genetics, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Brockton-West Roxbury Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Massachusetts Mental Health Center, USA
*
∗Psychiatry Service (116A), Brockton Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 940 Belmont Street, Brockton, MA 02401, USA
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Abstract

Numerous studies have found that male schizophrenic patients have earlier ages at onset than females. However, none of these studies have corrected the observed ages for known gender differences in the age distribution of the population. Using a pre-existing data set, we applied a non-parametric method to correct the male and female distributions of observed age at onset for sex-specific age distributions. The distributions of observed age at onset indicated earlier onset among males. After correction, the age-at-onset distributions shifted toward older ages, but the difference between males and females remained statistically significant. Thus, gender differences in the age at onset of schizophrenia are not artefactual.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 164 , Issue 5 , May 1994 , pp. 625 - 629
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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