Objective: To investigate if there was an association of sex with health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) and psychiatric comorbidities in adults with Tourette syndrome (TS) and other chronic tic disorders (CTD).

Background: Prior studies have suggested that women with TS/CTD may experience increased psychosocial and tic-related functional interference in addition to lower perceived quality of life as compared to men [2][3]. There has also been evidence that psychiatric symptoms are the predominant factor to account for worse HR-QOL in individuals with TS/CTD [1].

Method: Adults (>18 years old) with CTD were recruited from an academic tertiary care TS clinic to undergo the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS) and to complete an online battery of self-report measures assessing psychiatric symptoms and HR-QOL. The Gilles de la Tourette-Quality of Life Scale (GTS-QOL) was used to assess HR-QOL. The GTS-QOL contains four subscales that assess domains most affected by TS: psychological, physical/activities of daily living (ADL), obsessive-compulsive, and cognitive. Validated self-report measures were used to assess symptom severity of depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Measures of central tendency are reported for the above scales, stratified by sex. Between-sex contrasts of scale scores were conducted with a Wilcoxon rank sum test.

Results: A total of 85 adults (51 men, 34 women) with TS/CTD participated. There was a statistically significant difference in GTS-QOL scores between men and women in the physical/ADL subscale (men 25, women 34; p < 0.05). There was not a statistically significant between-sex difference in total GTS-QOL score or other GTS-QOL subscale scores. The sexes did not significantly differ on YGTSS total tic severity score or on scores for measures assessing depression, anxiety, OCD, or ADHD symptoms.

Conclusion: In this TS/CTD sample, female participants were found to have worse HR-QOL in the physical/ADL domain, though not in other HR-QOL domains. This finding is notable given that this sample of men and women with TS/CTD did not significantly differ in severity of tics or in severity of depression, anxiety, OCD, or ADHD symptoms. Further research is needed to understand the factors contributing to worse HR-QOL in the physical/ADL domain.

References: 1. Isaacs, D. A., Riordan, H. R., & Claassen, D. O. (2021). Clinical correlates of health-related quality of life in adults with chronic tic disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.619854
2. Lewin, A. B., Murphy, T. K., Storch, E. A., Conelea, C. A., Woods, D. W., Scahill, L. D., Compton, S. N., Zinner, S. H., Budman, C. L., & Walkup, J. T. (2012). A phenomenological investigation of women with tourette or other chronic tic disorders. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 53(5), 525–534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2011.07.004
3. Lichter, D. G., & Finnegan, S. G. (2015). Influence of gender on tourette syndrome beyond adolescence. European Psychiatry, 30(2), 334–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2014.07.003

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/association-of-sex-with-health-related-quality-of-life-in-adults-with-chronic-tic-disorders/