Gender Differences in Mental Disorder Prevalence

Turns out that men and women have different forms of mental illness in general - women showed higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders, and men showed higher rates of antisocial personality and substance use disorders.

The article was behind a pay-wall, but I was sent a link by one of the psychology magazines I read - check it out. It's geeky research stuff, but the results are interesting.

This would seem to add some additional evidence to the belief that male and female brains are wired differently - at least a little bit. On the other hand, men are taught to turn tough feelings outward (anti-social) and women are taught to be more emotional (mood disorders) - those are broad generalizations. But for men, even addictions are ways NOT to feel anything, ways to numb, so it reinforces the stereotype that men avoid feelings and women feel too much.

Of course, part of that is nonsense - and part of it is based in how males and females are socialized.

An Invariant Dimensional Liability Model of Gender Differences in Mental Disorder Prevalence: Evidence From a National Sample

Nicholas R. Eaton, Katherine M. Keyes, Robert F. Krueger, Steve Balsis, Andrew E. Skodol, Kristian E. Markon, Bridget F. Grant, and Deborah S. Hasin

CITATION
Eaton, N. R., Keyes, K. M., Krueger, R. F., Balsis, S., Skodol, A. E., Markon, K. E., Grant, B. F., & Hasin, D. S. (2011, August 15). An Invariant Dimensional Liability Model of Gender Differences in Mental Disorder Prevalence: Evidence From a National Sample. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0024780

ABSTRACT

Epidemiological studies of categorical mental disorders consistently report that gender differences exist in many disorder prevalence rates and that disorders are often comorbid. Can a dimensional multivariate liability model be developed to clarify how gender impacts diverse, comorbid mental disorders? We pursued this possibility in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; N
43,093). Gender differences in prevalence were systematic such that women showed higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders, and men showed higher rates of antisocial personality and substance use disorders. We next investigated patterns of disorder comorbidity and found that a dimensional internalizing-externalizing liability model fit the data well, where internalizing is characterized by mood and anxiety disorders, and externalizing is characterized by antisocial personality and substance use disorders. This model was gender invariant, indicating that observed gender differences in prevalence rates originate from women and men’s different average standings on latent internalizing and externalizing liability dimensions. As hypothesized, women showed a higher mean level of internalizing, while men showed a higher mean level of externalizing. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding gender differences in psychopathology and for classification and intervention.