Older Men Less Likely to Receive Treatment for Depression

October 16, 2006

A new study confirms a gender disparity in treatment of geriatric depression. Researchers, publishing their findings in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, used IMPACT—a network of referring physicians, depression care managers, and study recruiters—to acquire qualitative data to test the hypothesis that older men are less likely than older women to seek depression treatment. Indeed, they found that older men are significantly less likely to have previously received treatment for depression. “Traditional male values” and stigmatization of mental illness were among the reasons older men did not seek treatment. http://ajgponline.org/cgi/content/abstract/14/10/884

-LS