Through the eyes of the parents: a transdiagnostic psychiatric perspective for children with differences of sexual development

Existing literature lacks data on a subgroup exhibiting psychiatric symptoms below the DSM-5 diagnostic threshold within differences of sexual development (DSD) cases. Our study aims to assess parental knowledge, attitudes toward DSD, and parental perceptions of emotional and behavioral states through a transdiagnostic perspective.

The study was conducted with a total of 35 parents of children with DSD. Two groups were established via k-means clustering, based on psychiatric symptomatology levels, derived from The Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire - Parent Form and The Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale - Parent Form: with one group exhibiting lower reported psychiatric symptoms (LPS=27) and the other demonstrating higher psychiatric symptoms (HPS=8) by parents.

Our study found that many parents were hesitant to disclose DSD diagnoses to their children, believing them to be too young to comprehend the information (42.9 %) and that they were unaware of the available support that could be provided by the medical team in disclosing the diagnosis (25.7 %). Our study found no differences in DSM-5 diagnoses between HPS and LPS groups (p>0.05), with ADHD being the most prevalent diagnosis (21.7 %) and a significant overrepresentation of children with a discrepancy between assigned gender at birth and gender upbringing in the HPS group compared to the LPS group (p<0.001).

Our study emphasizes the necessity of a transdiagnostic approach in psychiatry to move beyond binary conceptualizations and better understand the complexities of individuals with DSD.