Women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression and anxiety than their male counterparts, while men are more susceptible to social issues such as anti-social behaviour and substance abuse.
These findings come from a recent study by Nicholas R. Eaton, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, and were published in Journal of Abnormal Psychology. This new study highlights the ways in which gender differences play a key role in how men and women relate with their emotions. Women showed higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders and men showed higher rates of antisocial personality and substance use disorder.
It suggests that women are more likely to internalise their emotions and withdraw, while men are likely to externalise their emotions and react in a more visible way.
Different types of depression
Depression can affect people of all ages, types, and from all countries. It is not a “one size fits all” problem, especially when it comes to gender. In the past, questions have been raised as to whether these differences can simply be assigned to gender differences and the way the different sexes deal with emotional situations.
Eaton and colleagues analysed more than 43,000 individuals, all of whom participated in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. The individuals were assessed on their lifetime diagnosis of mental illness and information on diagnosis made the previous year. The result shows 22.9 per cent of women had been diagnosed with depression in their lifetime compared to 13.1 per cent of men.
The study provides compelling evidence that observed gender differences in prevalence rates of many common mental disorders originate at the level of tendencies for men and women to internalise their emotions to different degrees.
Risky years
According to the National Mental Health Association, about one in every eight women can expect to develop clinical depression during their lifetime and it occurs most frequently in females between the ages of 25 and 44.
Women are more than two-and-a-half times more likely than men to suffer from depression, with most cases in the “reproductive years” says professor Hans Ulrich Wittchen, one of the authors of a study by Dresden University of Technology in Germany for the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Quoted in the Guardian, Hans Ulrich Wittchen said, “In females, you see these incredibly high rates of depressive episodes at times when they sometimes have their babies, where they raise children, where they have to cope with the double responsibility of job and family.”
Contributing factors
According to Mental Health America, many factors may contribute to the imbalance of diagnosed depression between the sexes. Amongst these are developmental, hormonal (premenstrual syndrome, infertility, child birth and menopause), genetic and biological differences. Researchers have shown that hormones affect the brain chemistry, which in turn controls our emotions and mood. This explains why some specific times in a woman’s life are of interest in terms of depression risk, such as puberty, menstrual periods, pregnancy and menopause.
Some social factors, such as stress from work, relationships and family responsibilities can also be contributing factors that may affect depression prevalence in women over men.
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