Impact of gender role and gender traits on depression in adolescents

Abstract

Objective To study the impact of gender, gender role and gender traits on depression in adolescents. Methods A sample of 1330 middle school students from seven provinces in China completed Beck Depression Inventory(BDI) and Gender Traits Inventory. Results 27.1 percents of participants displayed the symptoms of depression.The mean score of males of BDI was 10.04±8.38 while that of females was 10.33±8.37, indicating that there was no sex differences in depression of adolescents(P=0.535). The participants could be classified into 4 sex role types: masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated, and the BDI mean score of each type was 9.51±7.66, 12.30±8.81, 9.14±8.10, 10.72±8.66, and significant differences were found among adolescents with different gender roles(P=0.000). BDI scores of the feminine adolescents were the highest among the four gender roles, which were significantly higher than scores of the masculine and androgynous adolescents(P=0.000). Regression analysis indicated that adolescents with more positive masculine traits tended to be less depressive(t=-4.966, P<0.01)while adolescents with more negative masculine(t=2.574, P<0.01) or feminine (t=10.566, P<0.01)traits tended to be more depressive. Conclusion Gender role rather than gender has greater impacts on adolescent depression, and specifically, positive masculine traits represent protective factors for depression. Key words: Gender role; Gender traits; Adolescents; Depression