![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/editlab\/files\/2016\/07\/Chris2.jpg\")
<\/a>Chris<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Katie<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anxiety and depressive disorders are more commonly diagnosed and treated in women than in men (<\/span>1<\/span>). Such statistics may reinforce gendered stereotypes, that view women as emotionally weaker than men, and myths such as \u201cdepression and anxiety only affect women\u201d.\u00a0 Historically, men were expected not to show emotions for fear of being seen as weak and so it\u2019s possible this is the reason behind these stereotypes. However, this attitude is simply not true. Research studies examining the whole population have found that these disorders are common in <\/span>both <\/span><\/i>women and men. Whilst it is important to reduce stigma and increase help-seeking behaviours for everyone, this is particularly critical for men who are experiencing anxiety and\/or depression. Unfortunately, suicide remains the most common cause of death in young men (<\/span>2)<\/span>, which may often be due to unrecognised or untreated depression or anxiety. There are several complex reasons why these disorders are less visible in men. In this blog post, we focus on three interrelated barriers to diagnosis and treatment: unrecognised symptoms, help-seeking (or lack of), and stigma.<\/span><\/p>\n “Disorders are common in <\/span>both <\/span><\/i>women and men.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Symptoms <\/i><\/b>\u2192 Diagnosis<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Anxiety and depressive disorders are most commonly characterised by persistent sadness, worry and loss of enjoyment, that are experienced at a level which disrupts daily life. However, as described in our previous <\/span>blog post<\/span><\/a>, there are many combinations of symptoms that indicate that a person is depressed. Research suggests that different combinations of depression symptoms are sex-specific (<\/span>3)<\/span>. For example, men are more likely to present with aggression, alcohol\/substance abuse, and risk-taking (<\/span>4,5)<\/span>, and while these are not the \u201ccore\u201d symptoms of depression, they are strong behavioural indicators. On one study that chose to include these symptoms as diagnostic criteria, <\/span>rates of depression were comparable between the sexes (<\/span>5)<\/span>. <\/span>It has also been shown empirically that men are less able to identify depression in another person and moreover, this effect was most pronounced when the other person was also a man(<\/span>6)<\/span>. <\/span>As such, it is important that medical professionals consider depression even when it is not the primary concern of the patient, especially in men. <\/span>This leads to our next point, differences in help-seeking.<\/span><\/p>\n\n