Major Depressive Disorder and Gender Differences
- DOI
- 10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_199How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Major depressive disorder; depression; gender differences
- Abstract
Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been a persistent mental health issue around the world. The fact that MDD has a higher prevalence in women has been a robust finding in the research literature and an unresolved problem. Therefore, this paper reviews the related literature and summarizes the main findings of gender differences in a variety of aspects, such as symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. For instance, women usually have an earlier onset of MDD and report more symptoms and comorbidities, while men tend to have alcohol issues and negative attitudes toward MDD. Then, the paper explores the possible explanations that contribute to the gender gap through the lens of biology and socio-cultural elements. The biological aspect is examined through the elements of genes, brain functioning, and hormone. The socio-cultural explanation discusses the connection of MDD with socially constructed concepts of masculinity and femininity and women’s social role conflicts. For example, while masculinity ideologies may restrict men’s emotional expression of sadness and vulnerability, femininity sends the message that women should be caring and empathetic and should not express “masculine emotions” such as anger. This emotion suppression may influence them to mask their true emotions, which is associated with mental negativity. Lastly, implications and further research directions are suggested, given the current uncertainty in the literature.
- Copyright
- © 2023 The Author(s)
- Open Access
- Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Qinchun Zhu PY - 2023 DA - 2023/02/13 TI - Major Depressive Disorder and Gender Differences BT - Proceedings of the 2022 4th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2022) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 1551 EP - 1559 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_199 DO - 10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_199 ID - Zhu2023 ER -