Does “Male” Depression Exist in Rural Australian Men?

Abstract

To determine whether males exhibited a different form of depression to Major Depressive Disorder, 85 male volunteers completed a survey questionnaire about background variables, the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) and the Gotland Male Depression Scale (GMDS). Almost 50% of the variance in the GMDS was not accounted for by the SDS, and the sensitivity of the SDS against the GMDS showed that about 15% of those men who were identified as depressed on the GMDS would not be similarly identified on the SDS. Different prevalence rates from the two scales suggested that they were assessing different sets of symptoms of depression. A combined SDS-GMDS scale of 24 items was used to produce a profile of male depression in these men.