Abstract

BAPTISTA, Makilim Nunes; BAPTISTA, Adriana Said Daher  and  OLIVEIRA, Maria das Graças de. Depression and gender: why is depression more prevalent in women?. Temas psicol. [online]. 1999, vol.7, n.2, pp.143-156. ISSN 1413-389X.

Depression can be considered one of the most prevalent disorders among people, with significant suffering for the patient. Several psychological, social and biological factors may contribute to the development, maintenance and remission of depression disorders. Approximately 5% of the population have depressive symptoms and from adolescence onwards, there are approximately two women for one depressed man. This paper aproaches a possible elucidation for that difference, within a psychological, social, biological and genetic points of view. It seems that biological and neuroendocrinological variables play an important role in the explanation of these differences, because depression disorders usually appear with menstruation, when the female adolescents' body suffers several hormonal changes. Nevertheless, psychological and social variables are also fundamental to account for the prevalent difference in gender, because the etiology and development of these disorders are based on multi-factorial explanations.

Keywords : depression; gender; risk factors.

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