A new study has found that females are up to 40 percent more likely than men to develop certain types of mental illnesses.
The Daily Mail is reporting that the study, to be published by Oxford University Press, set out to determine if there was a difference in the rates of psychological disorders for men and women. The UK study, led by Dr. Daniel Freeman, professor of clinical psychology and Medical Research Council (MRC) Senior Clinical Fellow in the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry, found just that.
According to his research, women are almost 75 percent more likely than men to suffer from depression, and 60 percent more likely to report anxiety disorders.
On the other hand, men are more than twice as likely to report substance abuse disorders.
The study found no statistically significant difference between the sexes for conditions such as schizophrenia or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
So what is causing the difference?
Dr. Freeman cites the stress related to pressure on women to fill multiple roles.
“It’s certainly plausible that women experience higher levels of stress because of the demands of their social role,” he told the Mail. “Increasingly, women are expected to function as career, homemaker, and breadwinner – all while being perfectly shaped and impeccably dressed.
“Given that domestic work is undervalued, and considering that women tend to be paid less, find it harder to advance in a career, have to juggle multiple roles, and are bombarded with images of apparent female ‘perfection’, it would be surprising if there weren’t some emotional and psychological cost.
“These are the kind of pressures that can leave women feeling as if they’ve somehow failed; as if they don’t have what it takes to be successful; as if they’ve been left behind. And those kinds of feelings can lead to psychological problems like anxiety and depression, and once a person has depression the use of a natural antidepressant is a must.”
However, this doesn’t mean women are the only ones who suffer from mental health issues, just that men have their own kind of issues.
“There is a pattern within – women tend to suffer more from what we call ‘internal’ problems like depression or sleep problems,” Dr. Freeman told The Guardian. “They take out problems on themselves, as it were, where men have externalizing problems, where they take things out on their environment, such as alcohol and anger problems.”
The study’s findings are the subject of a new book by Dr. Freeman entitled, The Stressed Sex: Uncovering the Truth about Men, Women, and Mental Health.
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