Psychiatric approaches for disorders of sex development: Experience of a multidisciplinary team

Objective: disorders of sex development (dsd) are a group of congenital medical conditions that affect life as a whole. in this study,we aimed to reflect the experience of a multidisciplinary team in the clinical/psychiatric follow-up of a group of children and adolescents with dsd. methods: the study group consisted of 51 patients diagnosed with dsd. the kiddie-schedule for affective disorders and schizophrenia,wechsler intelligence scale for children-revised,draw a person test and children's apperception test,and the clinical global impression scale (cgis) were used for psychiatric evaluations. results: the mean age of the patients was 7.8 years (median: 7.8; min: 1.0; max: 18.0). genetic evaluation showed 46,xx configuration in 15 patients (29.4%) and 46,xy in 35 (68.6%). one patient (2.0%) was diagnosed to have a sex chromosome disorder. forty patients (78.4%) had no problems with their given gender identity and gender role. thirty-four (66.7%) patients had normal intellectual capacity. twenty-eight (54.9%) patients did not have any psychiatric problem. depression,anxiety disorders,attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder,and adjustment disorders were the common diagnoses. the mean score of symptom severity on cgis-severity-baseline was 6.15±0.68 and after one year,it was 1.46±0.51 (z=-3.236 p=0.001). the mean score of cgi-improvement was 1.23±0.44. conclusion: it is important to identify and treat the psychiatric disorders encountered in patients with dsd. a psychiatrist needs to be included in the professional team following these patients. examination and observation results need to be shared by holding periodic team meetings to establish a wholesome point of view for every unique child. © journal of clinical research in pediatric endocrinology,published by galenos publishing.