Sex differences in the psychopathology of inpatients

In a sample of more than 2000 patients from the Department of Psychiatry of the Free University of Berlin (58.8% men, and 41.2% women), the sex differences in the diagnostic distribution and in the severity of the depressive symptomatology were investigated on the basis of data documented by the AMP system. Due to patient selection by the hospital, men with depressive neuroses were found to be over-represented contrary to expectation; depressive psychoses, however, were prevalent in women as expected. In the total group of patients, depressive symptomatology at the symptom and syndrome levels prevailed in women. Within homogeneous diagnostic groups, depressiveness in minor depressive disorders like depressive neuroses was more severe in women, but in psychotic depression men were more seriously depressed than women. Attempts are made to interpret these findings on the basis of constitution-biological and role-theoretical concepts, but especially on the basis of sex-specific help-seeking behaviour.