Some Facts About Women’s Mental Health (P 2)

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

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Some Facts About Women’s Mental Health (P 1)

Diagnoses most commonly given to women are;

Depression

First episodes of depression are more frequent in women than men, and are likely to result from a mixture of social, psychological and biological factors. Fluctuating hormone levels may partly explain the higher rates of depression in women; however, hormones are likely to affect other aspects of women’s lives, such as their general health, relationships and living environment, and with social factors, such as the position of women in society and the value placed on women’s roles, rather than being the sole cause of depression.

First episodes of depression in women have been linked to the onset of puberty and menstruation, childbirth, and the transition to menopause. Depression is more frequent in married than never-married women, and in unsupported mothers.

Anxiety

Anxiety is more frequent in women than in men, though this may partially reflect the relative unwillingness of men to seek help. Men are more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol (in particular) to cope with stress problems, and are more likely to develop substance abuse problems than women.

Anxiety problems, including panic, agoraphobia, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and PTSD, are reported up to twice as often by women as by men. People with PTSD may have a range of symptoms, including re-experiencing painful events, avoidance, muscular and emotional tension, depression, emotional numbing, drug or alcohol misuse and anger.

Eating Disorders

Disordered eating patterns, such as compulsive dieting or eating, with or without induced vomiting and purging, can affect men and women, but the overwhelming majority of those affected are girls and women aged between 14 and 25 years. Girls are becoming weight conscious as young as five years of age. Since eating disorders are more common in developed and industrialised countries, it seems likely that the main causes are social and psychological, and relate to cultural pressures on young women to look slim. Young women from other ethnicities and cultures living in the UK and USA also acquire eating disorders, and may be at greater risk than White women.

Mind has produced a booklet, Understanding eating distress, that covers these disorders in more detail, and My name is Chris, a comic-style book written for young people.

Self-Harm And Suicidal Behaviour

The majority of people who self-harm are young women. Self-harming behaviour is also significant among minority groups discriminated against by society. Someone who has mental health problems is more likely to self-harm. So are those who are dependent on drugs or alcohol, or who are faced with a number of major life problems. Women are most likely to self-harm by cutting or poisoning themselves.

A study by an Asian women’s group found that the issues affecting young women’s emotional health included domestic violence, racism, bullying, family and home life, education, work/employment, sexual abuse, and the experience of being a refugee. Non-fatal deliberate self-harm was seen by young women as one of few accessible options in the management of their distress, allowing them to maintain privacy while providing a method of release.

The majority of people who self-harm are not suicidal, but, people who self-harm are at higher risk of suicide than any other group. Men have a higher rate of suicide than women – 17.4 men per 100,000 compared to 5.3 women. Reasons for this include the idea that women form more socially supportive networks than men, since isolation appears to be a factor in suicide. However, deaths by hanging have increased among young women in recent years.

See Mind’s booklets Understanding self harm, About self-harm (written for young people), and also How to cope with suicidal feelings.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

The majority (70 per cent) of people diagnosed with BPD are women, and suicide rates are high among this group (10 per cent). BPD has been linked to a history of trauma in childhood and PTSD.

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Some Facts About Women’s Mental Health (P 1)

30 Friday Dec 2011

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According to Mental Health Foundation in UK, my research on the data during my thesis project I’ve learnt; some facts about women mental health.

The facts and figures around Mental Health in the UK are alarming.

1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year

Mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain

Women are more likely to have been treated for a mental health problem than men

About 10% of children have a mental health problem at any one time

Depression affects 1 in 5 older people

Suicides rates show that British men are three times as likely to die by suicide than British women

Self-harm statistics for the UK show one of the highest rates in Europe: 400 per 100,000 population

Only 1 in 10 prisoners has no mental disorder

Some facts for women in mental distress, their friends, relatives, partners and those who care for them. It will be also be of interest to students and health professionals working with women in mental distress.

Some facts about women’s mental health

Recorded rates of anxiety and depression are one and a half to two times higher in women than in men.
One study showed that 57 per cent of those attending emergency departments for self-harm were women.
Thirteen to fifteen per cent of new mothers experience postnatal depression.
Women in custody have a high level of psychological disturbance – 78 per cent, compared with 15 per cent in women in the general adult female population.
Nearly two-thirds of womein their lifetime. Depression affects nearly half of women exposed to IPV, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects almost two-thirds.
Ninety per cent of the 1.6 million people in the UK who have an eating disorder are female.

What difference does gender make in mental health?

‘Gender’ refers to culturally and socially determined differences between men and women. It is related to how we are perceived and expected to think and act as women and men because of the way society is organised, not because of our sex (‘which refers to biologically determined characteristics).

Gender influences how much control men and women have over key aspects of their lives that can affect mental health, such as economic position and social status. Research that takes gender into account is considered to lead to better treatments and outcomes.

Gender awareness in mental health is required in law. The Equality Act 2010 reinforces the legal status of the Gender Equality Duty, which requires all public bodies to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment on the grounds of gender, and to promote equality of opportunity between women and men. All mental health and social care organisations have a duty to prepare gender equality policies for staff and services, to consult their stakeholders and to monitor the impact of their policies annually.

Gender inequality and risks to women’s mental health

Gender inequality in society leads to differences in the life experiences of men and women, which affect mental health in different ways. Gender inequality is described as a system that tends to give more advantages to men in terms of employment, status and ownership. Women are much more often expected to look after others in the home or in society, often doing work that is undervalued and unpaid or poorly paid.

Some risk factors for mental health problems affect women more often than men. These include gender-based violence, social and economic disadvantage, low income and income inequality, low or subordinate social status and rank, and major responsibility for the care of others.

Gender stereotyping and bias

Both women and men can be adversely affected by gender-based assumptions, stereotypes and social pressures. For example, beliefs that women are emotionally or psychologically vulnerable, while men are strong, can be unhelpful for people’s mental health.

A World Health Organization (WHO) report claims that researchers have over-emphasised the impact on women’s mental health of biological factors such as menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth. The report says that the impact on women’s mental health often has more to do with what is happening in their social and emotional lives than with biological changes.

Gender differences in mental health disorders

Women receive more services than men for mental health problems at the level of primary care, though this difference is less at the level of secondary care (specialist and hospital treatment). It is difficult to know whether more mental health problems are diagnosed in women at primary care level because they seek help more often than men, or because they actually experience more distress.

According to another WHO report, there is little difference in the prevalence of mental health disorders between men and women, but the types of disorders and the stages of life at which mental health problems are most likely to be diagnosed differ. In childhood, boys are more often identified as having mental disorders, such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and substance abuse is more common. Young women experience more depression, self-harm and eating disorders. In adulthood, women are far more likely to be diagnosed with depression. Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are similarly likely in both sexes. In old age, women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression and psychoses.

Women are more likely than men to have more than one disorder, which increases disability.