Comorbidity of physical illnesses and mental disorders in outpatients with tic disorders: a retrospective study using the outpatient case system

Liping Yu; Hui Xu; Zhongliang Jiang; Hanxue Yang; Yonghua Cui; Ying Li

doi:10.3389/fneur.2024.1397766

Comorbidity of physical illnesses and mental disorders in outpatients with tic disorders: a retrospective study using the outpatient case system

Front Neurol. 2024 Dec 5:15:1397766. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1397766. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Liping Yu^#¹, Hui Xu^#², Zhongliang Jiang¹, Hanxue Yang³, Yonghua Cui¹, Ying Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children Healthy, Beijing, China.
² Big Data Center, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children's Health, Beijing, China.
³ School of Psychology, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China.
⁴ Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children Healthy, Beijing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Tic disorder, a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder that typically onsets during childhood, is characterized by sudden, involuntary, rapid, and non-rhythmic motor and vocal tics. Individuals with tic disorders often experience physical health issues. The purpose of our retrospective analysis was to elucidate the common comorbid physical diseases and mental disorders and their characteristics of outpatient children with tic disorders in a large public children's hospital in China over the past 5 years.

Methods: Participants were outpatients with tic disorders who visited Beijing Children's Hospital, from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2022. After the inclusion screening, a total of 523,462 patient visits were included in the analysis. Based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) diagnostic system, we employed descriptive statistical analysis to examine the frequently co-occurring somatic diseases in patients with tic disorders, as well as the influence of variables such as age and seasonal variation on these comorbidities.

Results: The top five diseases of total outpatient visits were as follows: Respiratory diseases, Mental and behavioral disorders, Diseases of the eye and adnexal, Digestive disorders, Diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue. Among the top five comorbid disease system, the most commonly third- level classification of diseases were upper respiratory tract infections, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, conjunctivitis, dyspepsia, dermatitis. Respiratory system diseases experienced a peak in April, while the other four types of diseases reached their peak in August. Additionally, each disease system showed the lowest number of patient visits in February. Additional to the mental and behavioral disorders, the other four disease systems would experience a peak in medical visits between the ages of 4 and 6.

Conclusion: Our study highlighted the most common physical diseases and mental disorders in tic disorders, namely the respiratory diseases, specifically upper respiratory tract infections, and mental and behavioral disorders, with ADHD being the most common co-occurring condition.

Keywords: Tourette syndrome; comorbid; outpatient; physical disease; retrospective analysis; tic.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 82171538, 82001445, 82301731 and the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality under Grant No. 7212035, 7232057, Beijing Hospitals Authority Youth Programme Grant No. QML20211203.