OBJECTIVE

To study the features of the formation of gender reassignment`s ideas in schizophrenia spectrum disorders and to differentiate diagnosis of these psychopathological formations with transsexualism.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The study was carried out in the Department of Sexology and Therapy of Sexual Dysfunctions of the Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry — a branch of the Serbsky National Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Narcology in the period from October 2018 to May 2020. The study included 100 outpatients referred for gender reassignment. The subjects were divided into two groups. The first group consisted of 58 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (Paranoid schizophrenia, F20.0; Schizotypal disorder, F21; Chronic delusional disorders, F22) with ideas of sex change. The second group included 42 patients with a diagnosis of «Transsexualism» (F64.0). Clinical-psychopathological, pathopsychological and statistical methods were used.

RESULTS

Patients with transsexualism are statistically significantly more often adapted in terms of work and family, have experience of life in the desired gender, use hormone therapy and gender-affirmative interventions before undergoing a medical commission on gender reassignment and less often hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals, compared to patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (p<0.05). Patients with schizophrenia are more likely to experience delays and disharmony in psychosexual development. Sex reassignment ideas are more common in schizotypal disorder than in other types of schizophrenia.

CONCLUSION

Ideas of gender reassignment in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, as a rule, are formed on the basis of existing deviations in the early stages of the formation of gender identity. The central place in the psychopathology of schizophrenia spectrum disorders with ideas of gender reassignment is occupied by depersonalization-dysmorphophobic experiences with the following formation of overvalued, delusional or paranoid ideas of sex reassignment.