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- Title
"Female Preponderance" of Depression in Non-clinical Populations: A Meta-Analytic Study.
- Authors
Kui Wang; Han Lu; Cheung, Eric F. C.; Neumann, David L.; Shum, David H. K.; Chan, Raymond C. K.
- Abstract
Clinical observations and research suggest a female preponderance in major depressive disorder. However, it is unclear whether a similar gender difference is found for the reporting of depressive symptoms in non-clinical populations. The present meta-analysis was conducted to address this issue. We searched for published papers targeting nonclinical populations in which the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used. Eighty-four papers (91 studies) published between 1977 and 2014 were included in the final meta-analysis, which comprised 23,579 males and 29,470 females. Females in the general population reported higher level of depressive symptoms than males (d = -0.187, corresponding to 1.159 points in the 21-item BDI). This pattern was not found to influence by years of publication, socioeconomic status, or version of the BDI used. Using age group as a moderator, studies with adolescents and young adults were found to show a smaller effect size than studies with older participants. Our results appear to confirm the "female preponderance" in the level of self-report depressive symptoms in the general population, and support the social gender role theory in explaining gender difference over biological susceptibility theory and evolutionary theory.
- Subjects
DEPRESSION in women; SYMPTOMS; DISEASE susceptibility; GENDER differences (Psychology); MENTAL health &; social status
- Publication
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016, p1
- ISSN
1664-1078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01398