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Continuing female predominance in depressive illness.

A C Leon, G L Klerman and P Wickramaratne

Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York, NY 10021.

This paper examines gender differences in temporal trends for major depressive disorder in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. The study sample, a high-risk group from the National Institute of Mental Health Collaborative Study on the Psychobiology of Depression, includes 2000 first-degree relatives of probands with affective disorder. The age-specific incidence rates were analyzed to determine the effect of gender, age, period, and cohort on depression by age 35. Women had nearly a twofold increase in risk of major depressive disorder, with rates peaking between adolescence and early adulthood. Vulnerability to depression was highest in the 1960s and 1970s. The rate increase in recent decades has not corresponded to a reduction in the gender differences.

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