Admission for depression among men in Scotland, 1980-95: retrospective study

BMJ 1998;316:1496-1497 ( 16 May )

Papers

Admission for depression among men in Scotland, 1980-95: retrospective study

Polash M Shajahan, specialist registrar, ^a Jonathan T O Cavanagh, research fellow. ^b

^a Medical Research Council Brain Metabolism Unit, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Edinburgh EH10 5HF, ^b University Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital

Correspondence to Dr Shajahan polash.shajahan@ed.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It has been reported consistently that women have higher rates of depression than men; however, this difference in prevalencemay be changing.¹ An increase in the prevalence of depressionamong men might help to explain the rising number of men who arecommitting suicide.² The sex ratio for deliberate self harm $---$ aphenomenon that is related to suicide and depression $---$ is also changing,with an increasing number of men deliberately harming themselves.³We hypothesised that there would be a decrease in the ratio ofthe number of women to the number of men admitted to Scottishhospitals for depression between 1980 and 1995. During this timethere have been important changes in eco- nomic conditions andgender roles in industrialised countries.

	Methods and results

We reviewed discharge data on first admissions to Scottish hospitals for patients aged between 15 and 65 years old; data wereobtained from the information and statistics division of the NHSin Scotland. . . . [Full text of this article]