Sherrill J T, Anderson B, Frank E, Reynolds C F, Tu X M, Patterson D, Ritenour A, Kupfer D J
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pennsylvania, USA.
Depress Anxiety. 1997;6(3):95-105.
One of the most consistent findings in psychiatric research is that rates of major depression are at least twofold higher among women than among men. Although there is considerable agreement in the literature that life events play a role in producing, triggering, or maintaining episodes of depression, less is known about the relationship among gender, life events, and depression. In the present study, we compared the rates, focus ("interpersonal" vs. "non-interpersonal"), and timing of stressful life experiences reported in rigorous interviews of male and female patients with unipolar recurrent depression and nondepressed contrast subjects. Consistent with hypotheses, female patients were more likely to experience stressful life experiences than their male counterparts; rates of stressful life experiences did not differ between female and male controls. Unexpectedly, rates of interpersonal stress did not differ among males and females regardless of patient or control status. We also found no significant differences in the timing of pre-onset events: stressful events were generally concentrated in the period immediately preceding onset for both men and women. Thus, although these data suggest that life stress may play a larger role in the provocation of recurrent episodes of depression for women than for men, there do not seem to be sex differences in the extent to which interpersonal vs. noninterpersonal events and difficulties are associated with depression onset or in the temporal distribution of events. Implications of these results are discussed in the context of research on other putative factors contributing to gender differences in rates of depression.
精神病学研究中最一致的发现之一是，重度抑郁症的发病率女性至少是男性的两倍。尽管文献中相当一致地认为生活事件在抑郁症发作、触发或维持过程中起作用，但对于性别、生活事件和抑郁症之间的关系却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们比较了对单相复发性抑郁症患者和非抑郁症对照对象进行严格访谈时报告的应激性生活经历的发生率、焦点（“人际”与“非人际”）和时间。与假设一致，女性患者比男性患者更有可能经历应激性生活经历；女性和男性对照组的应激性生活经历发生率没有差异。出乎意料的是，无论患者或对照状态如何，人际压力的发生率在男性和女性之间没有差异。我们还发现发病前事件的时间没有显著差异：应激事件通常集中在男性和女性发病前的时期。因此，尽管这些数据表明生活压力在女性复发性抑郁症发作中可能比男性起更大的作用，但在人际与非人际事件和困难与抑郁症发作的关联程度或事件的时间分布方面似乎没有性别差异。在关于导致抑郁症发病率性别差异的其他假定因素的研究背景下讨论了这些结果的意义。
