Are there gender differences in affective disturbance in schizophrenia?

Abstract

There have been few investigations conducted into the relationship of gender to affective disturbance in clients with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia. The current study sought to determine if there was a significant difference between male and female clients in this clinical group (N = 100) on self-report measures of anxiety and depression. No significant gender differences were observed on Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) scores; effect sizes were, however, small. Gender differences were observed in the proportion of clients classified as possible cases on HADS anxiety (HADS-A) and depression (HADS-D) sub-scale scores. Further research is recommended to investigate the role of gender in the presentation of affective disturbance in this often neglected and socially marginalised clinical group.