Schizophrenia--a disease of young single males? Preliminary results from an investigation on a representative cohort admitted to hospital for the first time.

The later age at onset of schizophrenia in females, reported in the literature, led to a study of transnational case register data and of a cohort of all patients admitted to hospital for the first time with a non-affective functional psychosis from a defined catchment area. The preliminary analysis of the first representative sample of 86 patients showed that at the time of first admission with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (according to different diagnostic definitions) as well as at the time of onset of the disease (operationalized on different levels) females were on average 5 years older than males. Singles, and even more so young single males, were clearly overrepresented among those first hospitalized in comparison to the population of the same age. To remain single seems to be in most cases a consequence of the disease or of premorbid characteristics in those predisposed to schizophrenia.