van der Miesen Anna I R, Steensma Thomas D, de Vries Annelou L C, Bos Henny, Popma Arne
Amsterdam UMC, VU University Medical Center, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Amsterdam UMC, VU University Medical Center, Department of Medical Psychology, Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
J Adolesc Health. 2020 Jun;66(6):699-704. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2019.12.018. Epub 2020 Apr 6.
Transgender adolescents are at risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, along with high suicidality rates, and poor peer relations. The present study compared transgender adolescents before and after gender-affirmative care with a sample of nonclinical age-equivalent cisgender adolescents from the general population on psychological well-being and aimed to investigate the possible effect of transgender care involving puberty suppression.
In this cross-sectional study, emotional and behavioral problems were assessed by the Youth Self-Report in a sample of 272 adolescents referred to a specialized gender identity clinic who did not yet receive any affirmative medical treatment and compared with 178 transgender adolescents receiving affirmative care consisting of puberty suppression and compared with 651 Dutch high school cisgender adolescents from the general population.
Before medical treatment, clinic-referred adolescents showed more internalizing problems and reported increased self-harm/suicidality and poorer peer relations compared with their age-equivalent peers. Transgender adolescents receiving puberty suppression had fewer emotional and behavioral problems than the group that had just been referred to transgender care and had similar or fewer problems than their same-age cisgender peers on the Youth Self-Report domains.
Transgender adolescents show poorer psychological well-being before treatment but show similar or better psychological functioning compared with cisgender peers from the general population after the start of specialized transgender care involving puberty suppression.
跨性别青少年面临内化和外化问题的风险，自杀率高，同伴关系不佳。本研究将接受性别肯定治疗前后的跨性别青少年与来自普通人群的非临床年龄相当的顺性别青少年样本在心理健康方面进行比较，并旨在调查涉及青春期抑制的跨性别治疗可能产生的效果。
在这项横断面研究中，通过青少年自我报告对272名转介到专门的性别认同诊所且尚未接受任何肯定性医学治疗的青少年样本中的情绪和行为问题进行评估，并与178名接受包括青春期抑制在内的肯定性治疗的跨性别青少年进行比较，同时与651名来自普通人群的荷兰高中顺性别青少年进行比较。
在接受医学治疗之前，转介到诊所的青少年与年龄相当的同龄人相比，表现出更多的内化问题，自我伤害/自杀倾向增加，同伴关系更差。接受青春期抑制的跨性别青少年在情绪和行为问题上比刚转介到跨性别治疗的组更少，在青少年自我报告领域的问题与同龄顺性别同龄人相似或更少。
跨性别青少年在治疗前心理健康状况较差，但在开始涉及青春期抑制的专门跨性别治疗后，与来自普通人群的顺性别同龄人相比，表现出相似或更好的心理功能。
