Schizophrenia in Women
- Apr 22, 2025
- 3 min read
Over the past few centuries, women's health has been dismissed and understudied. Today, women's ability of being diagnosed of any physical or mental conditions has depended on how many resources a women has. For example, several studies have found that net income and rate of diagnosis are negatively correlated; the more money you have, the more you are able to afford resources in healthcare. The way our systems are set up directly impale the availability of resources needed by the mentally ill. This specifically affects women because they take longer to be diagnosed, therefore, it takes longer for women to receive treatment. In a paper by R Thara and Shantha Kamath, the two researchers explore schizophrenia in women, how culture affects the diagnosis of such disorders, and the affects not usually focused on by mainstream media.
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that affects around one percent of the world population. For every 1.4 men, one woman is diagnosed with schizophrenia, and this is only a rough estimate out of what is documented. In the start of their study, Thara and Kamath set the precedent that women do not get diagnosed more or less than men, they found that schizophrenia has the same prevalence across both sexes. Although schizophrenia has the same prevalence in women and men, researchers Sun et al. found that women are diagnosed later in life compared to men. From this information, the later onset of schizophrenia in women correlates to later diagnoses in women overall. Thara and Kamath believe later onset may be because of women's hormones like estrogen. This information shows the unpredictability and lack of clarity in women's health.
In Thara and Kamath's paper, they explore the cultural affects on schizophrenia in women. They found that Chinese women had more positive symptoms. Positive symptoms in schizophrenia are not the same denotation of what you might think; positive symptoms are more hallucinations, word salad, and abnormal motor behavior, meanwhile, negative symptoms are decreases in behavior like lack of talking and social withdrawal. In response to the symptoms of schizophrenia in women, many rehabilitation programs do not cater to the needs of these women. According to Thara and Kamath, in western countries like the United States, independence is a prioritization to rehabilitating mentally ill women. On the contrary, in developing countries, rehabilitation is focused on making sure the mentally ill women are taught caretaker skills, though important, they take away the focus on the patient and force the woman to reenter life only with skills in how to be a caretaker.
Schizophrenia in women has been depicted in several TV shows like Spencer's mother in Criminal Minds, Diana Reid. Diana Reid's character is an example of how schizophrenia is oversimplified in media. She is shown to have hallucinations and delusions, some of the main symptoms of schizophrenia. Even though her character is an accurate example of schizophrenia symptoms, Diana only shows a few of the vast symptoms of schizophrenia. One thing not shown in Criminal Minds is that women are shown to respond differently to treatment compared to men. For example, depending on what antipsychotic is administered as well as the patient's sex, leads to the outcome of quality of life. Due to responses from a women's endocrine system, hormones, women experience distress as a side effect of antipsychotics, meanwhile, men did not. These differences continue to show the importance that extensive research is still needed in women's health because of how different women and men are.
Sources:
Comments