The author presented study participants with one of two fictitious subjects, Kate and Jack. Both were described in non-clinical terms as having identical symptoms of major depression, the only difference being their suggested gender<\/strong>. For example, a sample of the test reads, “For the past two weeks, Kate\/Jack has been feeling really down. S\/he wakes up in the morning with a flat, heavy feeling that stick with her\/him all day. S\/he isn’t enjoying things the way s\/he normally would. S\/he finds it hard to concentrate on anything.”<\/p>\n Respondents were asked to identify whether the individual described suffered a mental health disorder<\/strong>, and how likely they would be to recommend seeking professional help to the subject in the test.<\/p>\n Both men and women were equally likely to classify Kate as having a mental health disorder<\/strong>, but men were less likely than women to indicate that Jack suffered from depression.<\/p>\n Men were also more likely to recommend that Kate seek professional help than women were, but both men and women were equally likely to make this suggestion for Jack<\/strong>. Respondents, particularly men, rated Kate’s case as significantly more distressing, difficult to treat, and deserving of sympathy than they did Jack’s case.<\/p>\n The researcher also found that individual attitudes towards depression were associated with skepticism about psychiatry and anti-scientific attitudes<\/strong>. According to the author, their results are significant for initiatives aimed at enhancing mental health literacy, which should consider the impact of gender stereotypes and attitudes towards help-seeking behaviors.<\/p>\n Citation: <\/strong>Swami V (2012) Mental Health Literacy of Depression: Gender Differences and Attitudinal Antecedents in a Representative British Sample. PLoS ONE<\/em> 7(11): e49779. http:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0049779<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Public Library of Science press release via EurekAlert!: The ability to correctly identify signs of depression depends on the gender of both the identifier and the person with… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[14,46,49,158,363,12,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8337"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8426,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8337\/revisions\/8426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Depressed](\"http:\/\/www.therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Depression2.jpg\")
The ability to correctly identify signs of depression depends on the gender of both the identifier and the person with depression<\/strong>, as well as individual psychological differences, according to research published November 14 by Viren Swami from the University of Westminster, UK.<\/p>\n