Depression is a complex disorder that is influenced by a variety of factors, including biological, psychological, and social elements. It is more than twice as prevalent in young women as in men (14 to 25 years old), but this proportion decreases with age. Women are almost twice as likely as men to receive a diagnosis of depression. Depression can occur at any age, and hormonal changes may not be a direct cause of depression, but they may set the stage for the disorder and increase its likelihood. Because women experience regular hormone fluctuations and more intense hormonal changes at specific times in their lives, their risk of depression is biologically higher.
People who have experienced adverse events in life (unemployment, grief, traumatic events) are more likely to develop depression. Depression, in turn, can lead to more stress and dysfunction and worsen the living situation of the person affected and the depression itself. We propose an alternative hypothesis: “Gender differences in self-reported symptoms of depression”, suggesting that women tend to report mild to moderate depression more frequently, and men tend to report severe depression and suicide more often. To diagnose and treat male depression early and effectively, it is essential to incorporate the symptoms of depression in men into the relevant diagnostic criteria, encourage men to express negative emotions, and increase awareness about suicidal behavior in men. Stress and the development of cognitive vulnerabilities to depression explain sexual differences in depressive symptoms during adolescence. MRI studies with depressed people have found changes in the parts of the brain that play an important role in depression.
In another study, when required to depend on others, men showed more severe depression than women (5), in which 58% of depression occurred in men. As a result, mild to moderate male depression is underdiagnosed and undertreated, leading to more severe depression and a higher number of cases of suicide in men. Menopause is a time when a woman's risk of depression decreases, but the perimenopausal period is a time of increased risk for people with a history of severe depression. Gender similarities in somatic depression and in the secondary symptom profiles of DSM depression in the context of severity and grief have been observed. Therefore, addictive behaviors in men may lead to an underdiagnosis of male depression since such addictive behavior is not a typical symptom of depression and may mask traditional symptoms of depression (5).The incidence of female depression obviously fluctuates with estrogen levels, leading to a greater “perceived fluctuation” in mood and to more reports of depression in women.
Consistently, the gender difference was only significant when mild depression was included according to the general Danish population (60), suggesting that female preponderance is more pronounced in states of less severe depression. In conclusion, women have reported depression and have been diagnosed with depression much more frequently than men (5, 20, 2). To diagnose and treat male depression early and effectively, it is essential to incorporate the symptoms of depression in men into the relevant diagnostic criteria, encourage men to express negative emotions, and increase awareness about suicidal behavior in men.
