Psychiatric admission in adolescent transgender patients: A case series

Gender dysphoria is defined as a marked incongruence between one's natal gender and gender identity that causes significant distress. It may be present in children but often fades prior to puberty. Gender dysphoria is more likely to persist into adulthood when present in adolescents. Due to the common occurrence of psychiatric comorbidities, gender dysphoria is a contributing factor leading to outpatient and inpatient psychiatric care in children and adolescents. There is currently limited available literature on psychiatric hospitalization and management in transgender adolescents. A PubMed search revealed no case reports regarding psychiatric admission for transgender adolescents with comorbid anxiety, depression, or suicidal ideation. Due to the lack of literature related to psychiatric management of transgender adolescent patients, this case series briefly describes the past medical history, pharmacotherapy, and discharge diagnoses of 5 transgender adolescents admitted to an inpatient psychiatry unit. In this case series, 4 of the 5 patients identified as female to male and ages ranged from 13 to 17 years. All patients had a history of depressive symptoms with suicidal ideation as the key factor prompting admission. All patients were managed on psychotropic pharmacotherapy, and 3 of the 5 patients were on pharmacotherapy related to gender transition. Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation were common comorbidities leading to psychiatric hospitalization of adolescent transgender patients in various stages of gender transitioning in this case series.