Logo image
Back
Gender differences in adolescent depression: Do symptoms differ for boys and girls?
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Gender differences in adolescent depression: Do symptoms differ for boys and girls?

David S. Bennett, Paul J. Ambrosini, Diana Kudes, Claudia Metz and Harris Rabinovich
Journal of affective disorders, v 89(1)
2005
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2005.05.020
PMID: 16219362
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel

Abstract

Adolescence Depression Gender differences Symptoms
Limited prior research suggests that depressed women are more likely to experience certain symptoms of depression than are depressed men. The purpose of this study was to examine whether such gender differences in depressive symptoms are present during adolescence. The Childhood Version of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia and the Beck Depression Inventory were administered to adolescents presenting for evaluation at an outpatient clinic ( n = 383; ages 11.9 to 20.0). Depressed girls and boys had similar symptom prevalence and severity ratings for most depressive symptoms. However, depressed girls had more guilt, body image dissatisfaction, self-blame, self-disappointment, feelings of failure, concentration problems, difficulty working, sadness/depressed mood, sleep problems, fatigue, and health worries than depressed boys on some comparisons. In contrast, depressed boys had higher clinician ratings of anhedonia, depressed morning mood, and morning fatigue. Longitudinal research is needed to test whether such relatively gender-specific symptoms play different roles in the onset, maintenance, or remittance of depression for boys and girls. These findings indicate that, in general, the experience of depression is highly similar for adolescent girls and boys. However, some gender differences previously found among depressed adults appear to be present by adolescence, possibly suggesting somewhat distinct etiologies for depression among males and females.

Metrics

9 Record Views
132 citations in Web of Science
155 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Clinical Neurology
Psychiatry
Logo image