Researchers in Norway recently studied the reasons why there are more girls with depression than boys. They focused on stress as a possible cause and found that both girls and boys face similar levels of stress, but it tended to have a stronger impact on girls. Their study was published in Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.
Depression is a mental health condition characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and a loss of interest or pleasure in activities. It can cause sleep problems, changes in appetite, low energy, difficulty concentrating, and even thoughts of self-harm or suicide. Women are more likely to experience depressive symptoms and be diagnosed with depression than men. This gender difference begins in early adolescence.
Researchers have proposed that girls may be more prone to depression because they face more stressors. This view posits that when girls approach adolescence, they experience more stressors than boys. These proposed stressors include sexual harassment and problems in relationships with friends. An alternative view is that girls might be more affected by the same levels of stress as boys. This view suggests that girls may react more emotionally and experience higher levels of negative emotions when faced with stress compared to boys.
Study author Ida Sund Morken and her colleagues wanted to investigate how stressful life events and being a victim of bullying might explain the facts that depression occurs more often in girls and women. They were particularly interested in knowing whether girls tend to be exposed to more stress than boys and whether they are more reactive to stress, experiencing higher levels of negative emotions from the same stressors.
The researchers analyzed data from a study called the Trondheim Early Secure Study (TESS), which included 3,456 children born in Trondheim, Norway, in 2003 and 2004. The children were included in the study when they were 4 years old and were assessed multiple times afterward.
The researchers looked at data on the children’s depressive symptoms, which were collected through interviews conducted separately with the children and their parents using a tool called the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment. They also examined information on the stressful life events the children had experienced in the past two years, based on reports from both the children and their parents. Additionally, they looked at bullying victimization using a questionnaire completed by the children’s primary teachers.
The results showed that depressive symptoms were relatively rare among children aged 8 to 12. However, the symptoms became much more common among girls when they reached 14, while boys of the same age had low levels of depressive symptoms.
When comparing the occurrence of stressful life events, the researchers found that girls did not experience more of these events than boys in any of the age groups studied. The same was true for bullying victimization – boys and girls, on average, experienced similar levels of bullying.
Comparing data collected at different ages, the researchers found that girls who experienced more stressful life events at 12 years old were more likely to show depressive symptoms at 14. This pattern was not observed in boys. Similar findings were observed regarding bullying victimization – girls who experienced more bullying at 12 were more likely to have depressive symptoms at 14, but this was not the case for boys.
“The current study is the first to examine and present support for the notion that increased reactivity to both stressful life events and bullying victimization in early adolescent girls may contribute to explaining the emerging female preponderance in depression,” the study authors wrote.
“These findings highlight the transition to early adolescence as critical for preventive interventions. Professionals implementing such efforts should take into account that exposure to stressful life events and bulling victimization, occurring already in preadolescence, might confer a heightened risk for depressive symptoms for early adolescent girls in particular.”
The study sheds light on an important aspect of the development of depression in adolescents. However, it also has limitations that need to be taken into account. Notably, children with more depressive symptoms at age 12 were more likely to drop out of the study. Additionally, researchers studied depressive symptoms and not clinically diagnosed depressive disorders. It is uncertain whether the results would be the same if the occurrence of major depressive disorder had been studied instead.
The paper, “Explaining the Female Preponderance in Adolescent Depression—A Four‑Wave Cohort Study”, was authored by Ida Sund Morken, Kristine Rensvik Viddal, Tilmann von Soest, and Lars Wichstrøm.
