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Hypersexuality in Inpatient Children and Adolescents: Recognition, Differential Diagnosis, and Evaluation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Fayez El-Gabalawi  and
Robert Arnold Johnson
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Abstract

We describe a 17-year-old girl with hypersexuality resulting from virilization, the latter a consequence of polycystic ovary syndrome, and we review the literature pertinent to hypersexuality in children and adults. Inappropriate sexual behavior (a common cause of disruption among children who are hospitalized for psychiatric disorders) may be caused either by hypersexuality or by simply ill-regulated behavior: a definition of hypersexuality is proposed that can be applied at the bedside (namely, sexual behaviors or fantasies that have abruptly increased in frequency by comparison with a previous baseline, are of sufficient excessiveness to disrupt expected or usual social, academic, or occupational functioning, or constitute a source of distress), so that this distinction can be made promptly, and we present a differential diagnosis for hypersexuality to direct its evaluation. Virilization does not seem to be a common cause of hypersexuality in children and adolescents, but it should not be overlooked when it does exist.The differential diagnosis of hypersexuality in adults, which we present for comparison, is much larger than it is in children.

Type
Case Report
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 12 , Issue 11 , November 2007 , pp. 821 - 827
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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