Differential Gender Severity Expression of Symptoms in Patients with Dual Diagnosis: An In-Patient Observational Study.

Background: The present retrospective study is aimed at exploring the impact of gender differences in a sample of inpatients with dual diagnosis. Subjects and methods: The study was carried out at the Psychiatric Service of the General Hospital/University of Perugia (Italy). Patients were recruited from January 2015 until December 2018. The sample consists of patients with dual diagnosis, divided into two subgroups based on gender; descriptive and bivariate statistics were performed (p<0.05). Male and females were compared according to socio-demographic, clinical and psychopathological features, measured by Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) and factor models of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Results: In our sample (n=157), no significant differences in socio-demographic features were found between male (n=108, 68.8%) and female subjects (n=49, 31.2%). Women displayed a higher frequency of involuntary hospitalizations (53.1% vs 32.4%, p=0.022) and a higher score on the general psychopathology scale of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) (41.86 +/- 8.96 vs 36.54 +/- 10.38, p=0.041). Conclusions: Our study confirms the prevalence of dual diagnosis in the male gender. Female sex appears more frequently connected to some indices of clinical severity. We expect to enlarge our sample to confirm these results and further clarify the knowledge on the subject.