TITLE:
Gender differences in recognising depression in a case vignette in a university student population: Interaction of participant and vignette subject gender with depressive symptomatology
AUTHORS:
Junko Andou, Toshinori Kitamura
KEYWORDS:
Depression; Gender Difference; Gender Identity; Gender Role
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Psychiatry,
Vol.3 No.4,
October
14,
2013
ABSTRACT: Objective: Gender difference
in depression prevalence may be explained by variation in the recognition of
depression due to differences in gender identity. Method: We distributed one of
four questionnaires describing fictional cases of Major Depressive Episode
(MDE) (2 predominant symptom types × 2 case vignette subject genders) to 72 students.
Participants were asked whether and how much they thought the subject in the
case was emotionally as well as somatically ill. They were also administered
the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale and the Ito Sex Role
Scale. Results: Participants scoring high in gender identity communion and
ideal gender roles communion and delicacy were more likely to identify the
vignette subject as ill. The severity of somatic illness was rated more highly
for the case of predominantly somatic symptomatology. The recognition of
severity of psychological illness was influenced by two interactive terms: the
gender of the vignette subjects x gender of the participants and predominant
symptoms x gender of the vignette subjects. Recognition of MDE case vignettes
as indicating illness, particularly psychological illness, was more likely when
the participant was female, scored highly in femininity, or was of the gender
as the case subject. Conclusion: These findings may be concordant with the
self-schema theory.