Sex difference in the rates and co-occurring conditions of psychiatric symptoms in incoming college students in Taiwan

Objective: The authors investigated the sex difference in the rates and co-occurring patterns in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition-referenced psychiatric symptoms among incoming first-year college students in Taiwan.

Methods: This was a college-based questionnaire survey. The participants included 2731 incoming first-year college students (male, 52.4%; mean age, 19.3 ± 2.6 years). The participants completed the Chinese version of the Adult Self Report Inventory-4 for the assessment of a wide range of psychiatric symptoms according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition symptom criteria. The participant rate was 74.1%.

Results: There were 55% of the participants having at least one psychiatric symptom. Symptoms of agoraphobia, body dysmorphic, and gender identity disorder were more prevalent in women; those of obsession-compulsion, tics, conduct problems, schizoid personality, and kleptomania were more prevalent in men. The magnitude of symptom correlations between compulsion and gender identity disorder, dysthymia, and antisocial personality, and between gender identity disorder and schizophrenia was significantly greater in male participants, whereas that between conduct problems and obsession and motor tics was significantly greater in female participants.

Conclusions: The Chinese version of the Adult Self Report Inventory-4 identified similar sex difference in psychiatric symptoms as Western studies. The sex difference in co-occurring psychiatric conditions warrants further investigation.