Clinical presentation of gender dysphoria and gender variance among Italian children and adolescents: a multicentric study.

In 2012 a national network of the Italian gender clinics for children and adolescents was established within the Italian ONIG (Osservatorio Nazionale sull’Identità di Genere), and developed a shared protocol of assessment and care in line with international guidelines (WPATH) and the indications of DSM-5 by APA (2013). In recent years, similarly to what happened in other countries, the clinics received an increasing number of contacts by families of gender variant children and adolescents. The network set a multicentric study in order to systematically collect national data regarding the features of Italian gender dysphoric/gender variant children and adolescents. We collected data from the socio-demographic sheet and from the psychological case history form (filled out by the professionals of each participating centre) related to all children and adolescents consecutively referred to the clinics of Torino, Roma, Bologna and Napoli. We analysed information about history of gender identity development; education; perceived quality of family and peer relations; associated psychological difficulties. Demographic characteristics and association between variables were tested through descriptive and multivariate statistics. We collected the data about 114 children and adolescents aged 3-18 (M = 12.78; SD = 4.27). Preliminary analyses showed a progressive increase across years of the number of referrals; participants’ assigned sex at birth was female for 54.2% of the group. Moreover, the gender variant and the gender dysphoric subgroups showed significant differences in relation to gender identity development history, family and peer relations, and associated psychological difficulties (for each variable: p < .01). The increasing number of referrals indicates the need of continuing with research in order to increase the knowledge about the factors that support the wellbeing of Italian gender variant children and adolescents.