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

It is commonly held that women are more at risk of developing tardive dyski nesia (TD). However, recent evidence suggests that this may only be the cas e in samples of older patients, men being more at risk in the younger age g roups. Abnormal movements were measured with the Abnormal Involuntary Movem ent Scale (AIMS) in a sample of 706 chronic psychotic patients aged not old er 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 inde pendent of other risk factors such as older age, severity of negative sympt oms 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 illn ess, who typically represent the majority of patients in community programm es for the severely mentally ill, men are more at risk of TD than women.