Mental health profile in adolescents with Gender Dysphoria requiring Gender Affirmation: the experience of the University Hospital of Bari

Abstract

Abstract Over the past twenty years the age at first visit in Gender Identity Clinics decreased and the number of adolescents referred to such Services appears to be increasing. Moreover, a growing body of research reveals that youths with Gender Dysphoria (GD) experience a range of psychiatric disorders at higher rates than the general population, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm. The objective of this study was to clinically describe a sample of adolescents with GD seeking Gender Affirmation (GA) who referred to the Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatry Units, Translational Biomedicine and Neurosciences (DiBraiN), University of Bari, Italy, in the attempt to better characterize internalizing symptoms, emotion regulation ability, and emotional investment in the body, depending on whether the GD onset was early or late in life and whether GD is associated with self-harm or not. A total of 66 adolescents with a GA request with an average age of 14.6 (SD±1.68) were included in this study. the comparison according to the GD onset shows significant differences in the emotion dysregulation profile in the total score (p=0.018) and in non-acceptance and strategies scales (p=0.030; p=0.41) with higher scores in the adolescent onset group. The comparison according to the presence of SA behaviors shows statistically significant differences in YSR internalizing symptoms with higher scores in SA behaviors group in almost all dimensions investigated. Lastly, in this group, statistically significant higher scores were found in BIS dimensions Care and Protection (p=0.013; p=0.006).