The importance of artifactual factors in the relationship between sex and mental disorders.

This study is based on a representative sample of 1,536 subjects (15 years of age and older) in three communities of Upper Bavaria. The rate of refusal was 6.8%. Independent of the sex of the interviewer the rate of mental illness among women was higher than among men. However, male interviewers diagnosed mental disorders for women slightly more often than did the female interviewers. Using a self-rating scale, we found a tendency indicating that women report more symptoms than do men when psychiatric respectively somatic diagnoses are held constant. 28.9% of the women and 22.1% of the men who, in cross-section, demonstrated a mental disorder, had been treated psychiatrically before. Men were more often than women admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Voluntary help-seeking seems to be more prevalent among women with emotional problems.