Reports that men develop schizophrenia earlier than women could be a
clue to major factors in the pathological processes of schizophrenia or
they could be diagnostic artifacts. The authors evaluated the effect of
alternative diagnostic systems on age at first admission for schizophrenia,
depression, and personality disorder. They found that the age-sex
disproportion is specific to schizophrenia and occurs irrespective of the
diagnostic system. An unexpected relationship between diagnostic system and
sex differences in the rate of schizophrenia obtained, however: the
broadest and narrowest sets of criteria yielded approximately equal
proportions of females and males, but intermediate systems yielded a
significantly greater proportion of males than females.
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