Clinical characteristics and health resource use of men and women veterans with serious mental illness

In this retrospective analysis of gender-specific differences among veterans with serious mental illness, the clinical characteristics and health service utilization of 57 women and 114 men were compared. Women had fewer comorbid psychiatric illnesses than men, and substance use disorders were the most frequent comorbid psychiatric illness for both genders. Unlike nonveteran samples with serious mental illness, the veterans in this study showed no gender differences in hospital length of stay. Atypical antipsychotics, used for only suboptimally responsive illness in the study group, were prescribed for 50 percent of women with primary psychosis, compared with 15.3 percent of men with primary psychosis. The results suggest that psychosis among women veterans is more severe or refractory than that among men veterans.