The influence of age on the female / male ratio of treated incidence rates in depression Karin

Background: Poor data exist on the influence of psychosocial variables on the female/male ratio of depression because of the small number of cases and the resulting limited numbers of variables available for investigation. For this investigation a large number of first admitted depressed patients (N = 2599) was available which offered the unique opportunity to calculate age specific sex ratios for different marital and employment status categories. Methods: Age and sex specific population based depression rates were calculated for first ever admissions for single year intervals. Moving averages with interpolated corrections for marginal values in the age distribution were employed. Results: For the total group the female/male ratio of depression showed an inverted U-shape over the life-cycle. This pattern was influenced by the group of married persons, which showed a sexratio of 3:1 between the age of 30–50, but ratios of around 1:1 at younger and older ages. For not married persons the female/male ratio was already around 2:1 at the age of 18 and rose to 2.5:1 in mid-life and declined to 1 at around 55. The almost parallel decline of depression rates in employed men and women resulted in a female/male ratio of about 2:1 from age 18 to age 50 and became 1 after the age of 60. The female/male ratio among the not employed was about 1, in mid-life it became negative. Conclusions: Our analyses show that the gender-gap in first admitted depressed patients is age dependent and that psychosocial factors modify the sex ratio. Introduction In reviewing published studies on age specific sex differences in depression, Jorm [1] concluded that the broad claim that depression is more common in women than in men is an oversimplification. He found that an inverted U-shape of the age curve of the female/male depression ratios fit the data best, reflecting the finding that the difference between male and female rates are rather small in young age, increase towards mid-life and decrease thereafter. More recent studies confirm this finding. Anthony and Petronis [2] have shown in an ECA-Follow-up study that the incidence rate of depression rises towards midlife in Published: 22 January 2002 BMC Psychiatry 2002, 2:3 Received: 26 July 2001 Accepted: 22 January 2002 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/2/3 © 2002 Gutiérrez-Lobos et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in any medium for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.