1 - Pubertal development and the emergence of the gender gap in mood disorders: A developmental and evolutionary synthesis

Summary

This book addresses mood and anxiety disorders in women. It takes a broad developmental approach, aimed at understanding and offering appropriate treatment for women with such disorders. The primary aim of this first chapter is to examine the emergence of the gender gap in depressive disorders at puberty, and to compare alternative theories as to the factors that underpin gender differentiation in depression at this developmental stage. These models are synthesised using an evolutionary perspective on gender differences to integrate the insights provided by socialisation, life stress, and biological models of pubertal development. Anxiety and anxiety disorders are addressed only peripherally, given the relative paucity of research in this area.

The emergence of gender differences in affective disorders during adolescence

Perhaps the most robust finding in psychiatric epidemiology is that the rate of unipolar depression is higher among females than it is among males (Weissman et al., 1996). Females are nearly twice as likely as males to experience case-level depression diagnoses (Kessler et al., 1994; McGrath et al., 1990; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990; Weissman & Klerman, 1977), and this finding holds true across a variety of cultures and racial/ethnic groups (Gater et al., 1998). Furthermore, studies of nonclinical depressed mood states have shown that females experience more symptoms during episodes of depressed mood than do males (Wilhelm et al., 1998).