Nationwide Transdiagnostic Age and Sex Patterns in Mental Disorder Disease Development

Are sex, age, and diagnosis at first psychiatric contact associated with key aspects of disease development, including the number of diagnostic shifts, the number of psychiatric contacts, probability of pairwise diagnostic shifts, and diagnostic recurrence?In this nationwide Danish cohort study including 273 400 individuals followed up for 2.1 million person-years, there were age-related differences across most aspects of mental illness disease development. While sex differences in the number of psychiatric contacts were negligible for most first diagnoses, males and females showed distinct patterns in the most probable diagnostic shifts.These findings suggest that subgroup-specific trajectories should be considered when allocating resources and planning treatment strategies.

Corresponding Author: Michael E. Benros, MD, PhD, Copenhagen Research Centre for Biological and Precision Psychiatry, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Gentofte Hospitalsvej 19, 2900 Hellerup, Denmark (michael.eriksen.benros@regionh.dk).

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