A cross sectional study on Psychiatric comorbidities and its relationship with stigma and self esteem among gender dysphoric individuals in tertiary care centre

BACKGROUND: The ‘Gender Dysphoria’ refers to the distress accompany the incongruence between ones experienced or expressed Gender . It has prevalence of 0.005-0.014%. In previous studies ,it was shownt 30-70% had depression and anxiety disorder, 50% had suicide and 10-66%had substance use disorder. AIM AND OBJECTIVES: To study Prevalence of Psychiatric Co morbidity and correlate the severity of psychiatric symptoms with stigma and self esteem among the Gender Dysphoric individuals. METHODOLOGY: This is cross sectional study undertaking 43 Gender dysphoric individuals (Transmen and Trans women) who attend the transgender op in Govt .Rajaji hospital ,Madurai within the age group of 18-45 yrs and were assessed using DSM 5 Criteria , Mini neuropsychiatric interview scale ,Hamilton rating scale for depression and anxiety ,Gender identity self stigma scale , Rosenberg Self Esteem scale using convenience sampling and compared with control population. RESULTS: It is found that depression ,anxiety ,Suicide and substance use disorder are more common among the Transgender individual. It is found that there is a positive correlation between severity of psychiatric symptoms and stigma and inverse correlation with self esteem . CONCLUSION: Stigma encountered by the Gender Dysphoria Individuals ,low self esteem contributes to psychiatric symptoms & substance use disorder , it necessitates clinical consideration in primary care settings and gender related treatment.