Title:Association of Perceived Gender Conflict with Depression and Attempted Suicide in Adolescent Girls
Volume: 11
Issue: 1
Author(s): Liat Haruvi Catalan*, Anat Brunstein Klomek, Gal Shoval, Gil Zalsman, Lior Schapir, Tomer Shechner, Orit Krispin, Neta Horesh, Alan Apter and Silvana Fennig
Affiliation:
- Feinberg Child Study Center, Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, Petach Tikva,Israel
Keywords:
Gender, depression, suicidality, adolescent, femininity, gender paradox.
Abstract:
Background and Goals: Suicide attempts occur mostly during
adolescence and are much more frequent in females than in males, although males
tend to commit suicide more often than females. This study aims to examine the
association between female gender, gender conflict, depression, stress and suicide
attempts in adolescent girls.
Methods: Participants included 86 adolescent girls aged 12-21 (μ=15.7, SD=3.07)
with depression (n=29), attempted suicide (n=15) or both (n=42), admitted
consecutively to a tertiary medical center and 93 healthy controls from the
community. Depression, suicidal ideation and behavior, gender identity and
conflict, personality factors, and stress were compared between the study group and
controls and each of the three study-subgroups and controls.
Results: A difference was found in the perception gap of own femininity versus
others' expectations of the subject’s femininity, between the suicide attempters both
with and without depression and the controls. Personality factors were also found to
be related to depression and suicide attempts. Suicide attempters with depression
showed more harm avoidance than those without depression. Novelty seeking was
significantly higher in non-depressed suicide attempters than in controls but not
when compared to suicide attempters with depression.
Conclusion: It seems that suicide attempts and depression may not only be related to
female gender identity. Conflicting gender expectations may result in increased stress,
raising the risk for suicide attempts, particularly in girls with high harm avoidance.
