The influence of gender on the classification of psychotic disorders--a multidiagnostic approach.

A multidiagnostic approach was used prospectively to classify a sample of 176 psychotic patients. An excess of males was found with only one out of 11 systems of schizophrenia, the World Health Organization "flexible" system of schizophrenia, with an excess of females noted in 2 of 5 systems of schizoaffective disorder, the Kasanin schizoaffective system and the Feighner schizoaffective depressed category. Correlation matrices of the diagnostic categories were generated for men and women and multidimensional scaling was used to plot the distribution of diagnostic categories. In the male sample, patients appeared to cluster according to affective symptoms and the mood-congruence of psychotic symptoms. Four clusters were apparent, but were less evident in the female sample. This gender difference was given partial support by quantitative measures of concordance. It is suggested that women manifested a greater admixture of symptoms, especially mixed affective and psychotic symptoms, than men.