The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Mental Health 489

weakness of this methodology is that depres-

sion is measured by self-report instruments,

which are vulnerable to demand character-

istics. If men are less willing than women to

report depression, community surveys may

underestimate men’s levels of depression.

Information on clinical depression is typi-

cally obtained from treatment facilities. The

strength of this methodology is that depres-

sion can be evaluated with more sophisticated

measures employed by trained clinicians. The

weakness is that respondents are not repre-

sentative of the population. To the extent that

men are less likely than women to seek help

for depression, studies of people in clinics also

may underestimate men’s rates of depression.

These two methodologies have provided

a wealth of evidence that women experience

more depressive symptoms than men in the

general population, and women are more

likely than men to be diagnosed with clinical

depression. In a study that combined the two

methods described here by conducting face-

to-face clinical interviews with members of the

community in 15 countries, females were be-

tween 1.3 and 2.6 times more likely than males

to be depressed across the 15 countries (Seedat

et al., 2009). You can see from Figure 13.1

shorter than two weeks. Major depressive dis-

order is often referred to asclinical depression.

How do we determine the frequency

of depressive symptoms or the incidence of

clinical depression? Two different methods are

used. Depressive symptoms are typically eval-

uated with community surveys. The strength

of this methodology is that large representative

samples of women and men can be obtained

to identify the frequency of depression. The

TABLE 13.2 MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODE CRITERIA

FROMDSM-IV-TR

Five or more of these symptoms present for

two weeks:

• Depressed mood most of the day, nearly
  every day.*


• Markedly diminished interests in activities.*


• Significant weight loss.


• Insomnia.


• Psychomotor agitation or retardation.


• Fatigue or loss of energy.


• Feelings of worthlessness.


• Diminished ability to think or concentrate
  or indecisiveness.


• Recurrent thoughts of death.
  *One of the five symptoms must include one of these.
  Source: American Psychiatric Association (2000).

ItalyIsraelJapan

LebanonMexico

USA

NetherlandsNew Zealand

BelgiumColombia

France

Germany

Spain

South Africa

Ukraine

Female:Male Odds Ratio

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

0.0

FIGURE 13.1 Ratio of female to male depression in 15 countries.

Source: Adapted from Seedat et al. (2009).

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