ArticleJournal of affective disorders2021
Sex differences in depressive symptoms and their networks in a treatment-seeking population - a cross-sectional study.
Article in Journal of affective disorders, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Structural connectivity abnormalities in suicidal thoughts and behaviours: a meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Sex Differences in Depression: Adult Cytogenesis as Potential Target for Precision Psychiatry.Cells · 2026Review
- Genetic and environmental factors underlying the associations between attachment styles and mental and physical health.Journal of personality and social psychology · 2026Article
- Association of circulating immune cell phenotypes and peripheral inflammatory biomarkers with depressive symptoms in the Framingham Heart Study.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Gender differences in symptom profiles of individuals being treated for mood disorders.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Gender differences in parent-child alienation and its relationship to depressive symptoms in left-behind children: a comparative analysis of undirected and directed networks.BMC public health · 2025Article
- When the Stars Misfire: Astrocytic Dysfunctions in Major Depressive Disorder.Neurochemical research · 2025Review
- Preoperative anxiety differentiates post-surgical opioid use in patients undergoing anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2025Article
- Understanding anhedonia in major depressive disorder in Japan: epidemiology and unmet needs from patients' and physicians' perspectives.BMC psychiatry · 2025Observational
- Sex differences in the network structures of depressive symptom profiles in Asian patients with depressive disorders: findings from the Research on Asian Psychotropic Patterns for Antidepressants, Phase 3.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Article
- Reliability and validity of the Chinese Version of the Frequency, Intensity, and Burden of Side Effects Rating.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Connecting the dots: Network structures of internalizing and functional symptoms in a population-based cohort.Journal of psychosomatic research · 2024Article
- Impact of air pollution exposure on the severity of major depressive disorder: Results from the DeprAir study.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2024Article
- Article
- Decoding depression by exploring the exposome-genome edge amidst COVID-19 lockdown.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- A Network Analysis Study on the Structure and Gender Invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale among Spanish University Students.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Understanding of Depressive Symptomatology across Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder: A Network Analysis.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- Connectomics-based resting-state functional network alterations predict suicidality in major depressive disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- Psychopathological network for early-onset post-stroke depression symptoms.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe higher prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) in females relative to males is well-established. Some authors have posited this difference arises to divergent symptom profiles in females vs. males. However, empirical tests of this hypothesis have yielded equivocal results. Here, we investigate sex differences in MDD of individual symptoms and symptom networks in a treatment-seeking sample.
methodsWe assessed depressive symptoms using Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) in 590 treatment-seeking adults with MDD (300 females). We examined group differences in symptom endorsement. We investigated symptom networks and estimated Gaussian Graphical Models. Finally, we compared the female and male networks using the Network Comparison Test.
resultsFemales scored significantly higher in psychological anxiety (p <0.001; rB = -0.155), somatic anxiety (p = .001; rB = -0.150) and feelings of guilt (p = .002; rB = -0.139). Male and female patients did not differ in depression sum scores. There were no sex differences in network structure or global strength. LIMITATIONS: Our study was sufficiently powered to detect only medium sized symptom differences. The generalizability of our study is limited to clinical samples and further studies are needed to investigate if findings also translate to outpatient samples.
conclusionFemales reported elevated anxiety symptoms and guilt. Clinicians should assess these symptom differences and tailor treatment to individual symptom profiles. No differences between sexes emerged in MDD network structures, indicating that features may be more similar than previously assumed. Sex differences in psychopathological features of MDD are important for future research and personalized treatment.
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