Serum testosterone level and its relation to aggressive behavior in schizophrenia

Abstract

This work is presenting partial preliminary outcomes of our study focused on evaluating the levels of testosterone in psychotic patients and its relationship to aggressive behavior.

Our study group included 10 male patients (from planned 20), with history of aggressive behavior at baseline and 24 male patients (from planned 40), without history of aggressive behavior. Non-aggressive patients were considered as control group. All included patients were hospitalized in psychiatric hospital Hronovce with diagnose of psychotic disorder. Levels of testosterone were measured by laboratory evaluation. Aggressive behavior was assessed by HCR scale, which was linked with every TSH evaluation. The level of testosterone was measured in all subjects at the baseline and in the group of aggressive patients was realized next measurement after 14 days of hospitalization.

According to our preliminary findings, the average level of TSH in our whole study group was 478.66 ng/dl (range from 158.06 to 767.81). The control group showed average value of TSH 486,84 ng/dl (range from 158.06 to 767.81). The group of patients with history of aggressive behavior showed average value of TSH 459.04 ng/dl (range from 191.81 to 638.02) and after 14 days of cure the levels were of average value 452.55 ng/dl (range from 253.53 to 657.92).

These preliminary findings don’t show significant intergroup differences, but there are some clear casuistic declines in TSH. After collecting the envisaged group of patients we plan to correlate values of testosterone level with the score of HCR, intergroup comparison and detailed analysis (including demography, pharmacology).

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.