Tardive dyskinesia in psychosis: are women really more at risk?

Abstract

It is commonly held that women are more at risk of developing tardive dyskinesia (TD). However, recent evidence suggests that this may only be the case in samples of older patients, men being more at risk in the younger age groups. Abnormal movements were measured with the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) in a sample of 706 chronic psychotic patients aged not older than 65 years (median age 36 years). Female gender was associated with a lower risk of TD (OR, 0.5; 95% CI, 0.3-0.7). The effect of gender was independent of other risk factors such as older age, severity of negative symptoms and exposure to antipsychotic medication in the previous 2 years. There was no evidence that the effect of these risk factors differed between the sexes. In samples of relatively young patients with chronic psychotic illness, who typically represent the majority of patients in community programmes for the severely mentally ill, men are more at risk of TD than women.