Sex differences in depression of Iranian adolescents

The purpose of this study was to investigate sex differences on a depression scale for Iranian adolescents. High school students (100 girls and 100 boys), selected randomly from four high schools in Shiraz, completed the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale. Analysis showed no significant differences on the five subscales of Zung's depression scale for boys and for girls. Also, there were no sex differences on the total score for depression. However, comparisons with Byrne's groups of British boys and girls indicated differences for Iranian boys and girls on 2 individual items reached significance, whereas for the British groups differences were significant for 11 of the 20 items.