Depression is a problem that strikes when one least expects it. Many people do not even consider it as a problem and deal with it as they would have dealt with problems like headaches or joints pain. In reality, depression is a common problem and is gaining roots in the modern society as stress and tensions in lives are increasing at an alarming pace. Avoiding dealing with this problem can result in extreme situations like contemplating suicide. Though, the number of depression cases is more in case of women, it is not that men do not suffer from this problem once in a while.
Study results
The rate of depression among women and men has been reported widely and it is believed these rates may be over exaggerated as men usually tend to under report symptoms related to depression as suggested by men. Men usually take these symptoms lightly or avoid till it can be avoided. Though, almost 70 percent women may be prone to suffer from the symptoms of depression as per the statistics offered by the National Institute of Mental Health, even men do not lag far behind. The difference in the rate of depression flipped when the words “depression inventory” was changed and instead “well being inventory” started to be used by the researchers. The impact was seen in a depressive symptoms questionnaire, a self reported CES-D. It was found that when thought that they are being questioned about their well being, they tend to report more depressive symptoms. The questionnaire’s reliability was also questioned as reported by Joshua Swanson, team leader of this research unit. This data was presented by Swanson who is an undergraduate student of psychology studying at Carnegie Mellon University located in Pittsburgh. The data was presented pertaining to the study conducted on 23rd April at Society of Behavioral Medicine conference annual meeting held in Philadelphia.
It was also found that when depressive symptoms are evaluated in men by practicing physicians, it is essential to keep this report bias in consideration as per Swanson. 111 students were a part of this study who filled two surveys randomly, either modified version where the word depression was swapped with well being or CES-D that was unchanged. In well being questionnaire, it was found that men significantly reported depressive symptoms while the rate seen among women did not vary greatly.
Potential explanations regarding depression rate disparity that has been long documented among men and women are highlighted in these findings. These finding leave a lot to think about and the thinking pattern of men and the reason they tend to under report their depressive symptoms. The findings were also found to be highly consistent with some research conducted earlier about gender differences perceived in depression but at the same time it provided an innovative and unique prospective by artificial manipulation of depression screening instrument’s purpose.
There may be little clarity about the implications of these findings but it gives a basic insight about the thinking pattern among men. The same study was conducted with an online test in which 116 participants were there and these differences were not visible. The questionnaire wording had no influence on the responses that were derived from men and women.
