Lauren Dunn

PSY 1010
Depression in Women
Introduction:
Depression doesnt just affect your mood; it affects your mind, behavior and even
your health. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) has estimated
that nearly 15 million Americans experience depression each year and about two thirds
dont get the help they need (National Alliance of Mental Illness, 2009). NAMI also
estimates that one in eight women will suffer from clinical depression, which includes
seasonal affective disorder and chronic depression, in their lifetime; this is twice the rate
of depression in men. Women tend be at higher risk for depression due to a combination
of biological, genetic, psychological and social factors. It has become hard to understand
why women are at risk for depression due to the fact that men and women usually
experience depression the same. Many people have studied depression in women to
determine why this has become such a problem.
Literature Review:
Due to the increase in depression among women, many studies have tried to
pinpoint what exactly is causing the dramatic difference in women getting depression
over men. Noble (2005) explains that, Epidemiological studies have shown that the
lifetime prevalence of a major depressive disorder in women (21.3%) is almost twice that
in men (12.7%) (pg.49). These ratios seems to be the case in different countries and
ethnic groups as well. It is also known that these tendencies seem not to differ with age.
Studies have shown that around the age of 10 years these differences in gender start to

show and depression in females starts to become more prevalent and that they continue to
be persisting until midlife. They believe that one of the major reasons for these
discrepancies to start around this age and end around midlife is due to the change in sex
hormones. According to Noble (2005), several biological processe3s are thought to be
involved in the predisposition of women to depression, includingfluctuation related to
various aspects of reproductive function, and undue sensitivity to such hormonal
fluctuation in brain system that mediate depressive states (pg. 51). Fluctuation can cause
women to have an increased vulnerability to change in their endocrine system. This
vulnerability is caused by the reproductive system and their menstrual cycle. Increased
vulnerability to depression is during and after pregnancy has also been studied to be a
major factor in the difference between male and female depression rates.
Neuroticism is a disturbance in personality that is not attributable to a
neurological dysfunction. Research has shown that 55% of diagnosed depression has
shared a common diagnosis of neuroticism, while 45% were unique to depression
(Kendler, Neale, Kessler, Heath, & Eaves, 1991). This is the evaluation of genetic risk
and environmental risk, showing that women are more susceptible to depression because
of the genetic risk factors that they have. These risk factors have been evaluated as
personality, and hormonal changes within the body of women. Kendler and colleagues
(1991), have seen that the personality of women make them more susceptible to
depression is the way they handle stressors.
Application:
Application to this topic is very simple. Many women suffer from depression in
our society. I interviewed five people to out why they think depression is so common in

women. Two of these individuals were male and three of them were female. Of these
individuals one of them suffered from clinical depression and was also female. During
my interview I asked them a series of questions. The first question that I asked them what
causes depression. Most of these individuals seem to answer the same. The most common
answer was a chemical imbalance. This is exactly what the literature addressed. They
explained that it was a hormonal imbalance or a change in hormones. The next question I
asked them was do you think men or women are more susceptible to depression and why.
They all explained that they believe women are more susceptible because they take
everything really hard. I believe that this is the personality of women. These questions
seemed to follow exactly what the studies had seen. All the people that I interviewed said
they knew at least one person that suffered from depression. Only one out of the five I
interviewed new a male that suffered from clinical depression.
Conclusion:
I learned a lot from this experience. Before I started this assignment I knew that
women were at higher risk for depression but I didnt realize the big gap we actually had.
I also didnt realize to the extent of how many women really due suffer from depression.
It was interesting to see that the reason we are at increase risk is due to something that we
cannot control. Our hormonal change is something that we will always have to live with.
If this is causing our depression rates to rise I think we need to focus on the root cause of
depression. We need to try to regulate or hormones better and maybe at an earlier age. I
am sure most people dont want to have their hormones regulated at a young age but
maybe it could help a lot of people with depression. I think it could also help us diagnosis
it earlier before it is to late. I would be very interested to see if something like this has

been studied or if it is currently being done. This topic is very interesting to me in the fact
that I feel we could almost treat depression early before we have to put someone on
depression medication. I think this has really helped me to understand what people with
depression are going though. Mental illness has become something that people dont want
to talk about or people dont really know about. I think it is something we really need to
focus on treating. We can help so many people if we dont treat it has taboo. A lot of
people are suffering from this and it just continues to increase. If we start to realize that
this is a serious problem and that a lot of people suffer from it, we can get people the help
they need to enjoy life again. Depression can cause a lot of other health problems, and I
think we can reduce those if we focus on helping these people.

Reference:

Duckworth, K. (2009, October 1). Women and Depression Fact Sheet. Retrieved
September 26, 2014.
Kendler, K., Neale, M., Kessler, R., Heath, A., & Eaves, L. (1993). A Longitudinal Twin
Study of Personality and Major Depression in Women. Archives of General Psychiatry,
853-862. Retrieved September 26, 2014.
Noble, R. (2005). Depression in Women. Metabolism Clinical and Experimental, 54(1),
49-52. Retrieved September 14, 26, from ELSEVIER.