Objective
The number of women veterans seeking Veterans Health Administration services has substantially increased over the past decade. Neuropsychology remains an understudied area in the examination of gender differences. The present study sought to delineate similarities and differences in men and women veterans presenting for neuropsychological evaluation in terms of demographics, referral, medical conditions, effort, and outcome diagnosis.
Method
A database collected from an outpatient VA neuropsychology clinic from 2013 to 2019 was analyzed (n = 232 women, 2642 men). Additional analyses examined younger (n = 836 men, 155 women) and older (n = 1805 men, 77 women) age cohorts.
Results
Women veterans were younger and more educated than men, whereas men had higher prevalence of vascular risk factors. Both groups were most often referred from mental health clinics and memory was the most common referral question. Although men performed worse on performance validity measures, clinicians rated women as evidencing poorer effort on a cumulative rating based on formal and embedded performance validity measures, behavioral observations, and inconsistent test patterns. Older women reported more depressive symptoms than older men and were more commonly diagnosed with depression.
Conclusions
This exploratory study fills a gap in the understanding of gender differences in veterans presenting for neuropsychological evaluations. Findings emphasize consideration for the intersection of gender with demographics, medical factors, effort, and psychological symptoms by VA neuropsychologists. A better understanding of relationships between gender and these factors may inform neuropsychologists’ test selection, interpretation of behavioral observations, and diagnostic considerations to best treat women veterans.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is generally acknowledged to be more prevalent in males than in females. Further, some precursors to ADHD appear early in life. Together these facts suggest that ADHD may be influenced by androgenic mechanisms operating early in development. This reasoning raises the question of whether the otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) of children with ADHD are masculinized. Click-evoked OAEs were measured for one click level in 8 boys and 3 girls diagnosed as ADHD/Combined, in 11 males and 5 females diagnosed as ADHD/Inattentive (IA), and in 17 male and 18 female controls. The ages of these samples ranged between 7 and 15. As in adults, the CEOAEs of the control males were weaker than those of the control females. Further, the CEOAEs of the ADHD/IA males were weaker than in the control males (a hypermasculinization) and the CEOAEs of the IA females were weaker than in the female controls (a masculinization). The CEOAEs of the Combined groups were slightly stronger (feminized) than those of the control males and females. One interpretation is that the IA subgroup of ADHD boys and girls (but not the Combined subgroup) was exposed to higher-than-normal levels of androgens sometime early in development. [Work supported by NIDCD.]
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.