Effects of Patient Gender on Clinicians' Diagnostic Assessment of Youth Disruptive Mood and Behavior.

OBJECTIVE

Youth disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) have a male preponderance, but the extent to which gender biases in clinical assessment influence this imbalance remains unclear. The present study investigates whether a child patient's gender affects clinicians' diagnostic decision-making regarding Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Conduct Dissocial Disorder (CDD), and Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).

METHOD: Clinicians (N = 403; 57.1% male; Mage = 48.96 years, SD = 11.09) participated in a global ICD-11 field study. Following an experimental design, participants were asked to use ICD-10 or ICD-11 diagnostic guidelines to evaluate two clinical case vignettes, randomly manipulating the patients' gender (boy, girl) and symptom presentation (ODD-Defiant, ODD-Irritable, CDD, IED). Analyses tested whether clinicians' diagnostic accuracy and perceptions of impairment and severity were affected by the patient's gender.

RESULTS

Overall, clinicians identified the correct diagnosis 64.7% of the time. Patient gender was not associated with clinicians' diagnostic accuracy (ps= .090-.895, |φs| = 0.01-0.18) or severity or impairment ratings (ps = .079-.404, |ds| = 0.04-0.19). This pattern of nonsignificant differences and negligible/small effect sizes was consistent across all clinical presentations and analyses.

CONCLUSIONS

We found no evidence of an association between patient gender, diagnostic accuracy, or perceived severity or impairment when assessing youth DBDs in the present study. Results suggest that diagnostic judgments may be driven by clinical presentation rather than gender and that the male DBD preponderance may not be due to gender diagnostic biases. Further research is needed to replicate these findings among youths in clinical settings, with diverse gender identities, and with other mental health conditions.