GENDER DIFFERENCES IN DEPRESSION ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

女性报告患有高度抑郁的可能性大约是男性的两倍 并被诊断为单相抑郁障碍。许多 对于抑郁症的这种性别差异，有不同的解释 建议。这项拟议的研究将检验这样一个假设，即 抑郁症的差异主要归因于两个因素。第一, 女性面临的社会条件使她们经历了 痛苦比男人更频繁。其次，女性往往有更多的 沉思和被动的应对方式比男性更能应对自己的苦恼， 这会加剧和延长因 女性，并干扰女性克服负面事件的能力 他们面对的是。这里提出的研究的第一个目标是测试这一点。 抑郁症与替代性抑郁的性别差异解释 其他理论家提出的解释。此活动的参与者 研究，所有人都将是成年人，将接受两次采访，为期一年 另外，由经过临床培训的面试者来确定他们的水平 抑郁症状，以及他们是否符合重度抑郁症或 恶劣心境障碍。在这些采访中，我们还将评估 以及参与者所遇到的负面生活环境的类型和 他们在这些情况下应对痛苦的方式。这 将使我们能够检验我们的主要假设，即女性将报告更多 消极的生活环境和更被动、更沉思的应对方式 这两个因素加在一起将解释性别 抑郁症在横断面和纵向的差异 分析。我们还将测试对性别的两种不同解释 抑郁症的不同之处：女性更容易弄巧成拙 归因风格与男性相比，这就解释了他们 抑郁症的发生率更高，而且出现经前症状 抑郁症状会增加女性明显的抑郁程度 与男人相比。这项研究的第二个目标是确定 年龄与性别如何相互作用来影响抑郁症的易感性。我们 将收集有关性别差异相对大小的基本数据 三个成人年龄组的抑郁症，早期成年人(25-35岁)，中年人 成年人(45-55岁)和老年人(65-75岁)。然后呢，我们再来看看 不同的因素是否与性别差异有关 不同年龄的抑郁症，以及女性和男性是否患上抑郁症 在不同的年龄、不同的问题上。这项研究的意义在于 它将提供与女性和女性健康相关因素的基本数据 男人在人生重要时刻的抑郁。这些数据将表明 在对妇女的干预中应针对哪些具体的危险因素 以及男性在一生中的不同阶段。

Women are about twice as likely as men to report high levels of depressive symptoms and to be diagnosed with a unipolar depressive disorder. Many different explanations for this gender difference in depression have been proposed. The proposed study will test the hypothesis that the gender difference in depression is attributable primarily to two factors. First, the societal conditions women face lead them to experience periods of distress more frequently than men. Second, women tend to have a more ruminative and passive style of responding to their own distress than men, which exacerbates and prolongs the periods of distress that arise for women, and interferes with women's ability to overcome the negative events they face. The first goal of the study proposed here is to test this explanation of the gender differences in depression against alternative explanations that other theorists have proposed. Participants in this study, all of whom will be adults, will be interviewed two times, one year apart, by clinically trained interviewers to determine their levels of depressive symptoms and whether they meet criteria for major depression or dysthymic disorder. In these interviews, we will also assess the number and types of negative life circumstances participants have encountered and their styles of coping with their distress over these circumstances. This will allow us to test our primary hypothesis that women will report more negative life circumstances and a more passive and ruminative coping style than men, and that these two factors together will account for the gender difference in depression in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. We will also test two alternative explanations of the gender differences in depression: that women have more self-defeating attributional styles compared to men, and that this accounts for their greater rates of depression, and that the presence of premenstrual depressive symptoms inflates the apparent levels of depression in women compared to men. The second goal of the study is to determine whether and how age interacts with gender to influence vulnerability to depression. We will gather basic data on the relative size of the gender difference in depression in three adult age groups, early adults (ages 25-35), middle adults (ages 45-55), and older adults (ages 65-75). Then, we will examine whether different factors are associated with the gender difference in depression at different ages, and whether women and men become depressed over different issues at different ages. The significance of this study is that it will provide basic data on the factors associated with women's and men's depressions at important points in life. These data will suggest what specific risk factors should be targeted in interventions for women and men at various points in the lifespan.