Prevalence of Depression in Women: Gender-Based Analysis

This assignment explores the prevalence of depression in women and the contributing factors. It also proposes a health promotion program to manage depression among women effectively.

Running head: DEPRESSION
DEPRESSION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
Depression is a common but serious mental health condition which impacts not only the
feelings of the affected individual in a negative manner but also the ways they think and act. This
disorder accompanies the feelings of sadness and loss if interests and pleasures in activities
which were enjoyed earlier (McMohan et al., 2015). This disorder even results in various forms
of physical as well as emotional problems that reduce the ability of the individuals to function
properly in both professional and personal lives. The present day studies and researches have
provided detailed information about the prevalence of the depression in the nation along with the
opinion that gender indeed plays one of the determinants in the development of depression
(Woolhouse et al., 2015). This assignment would show how gender plays the contributing role of
development of depression. It would also propose a health promotion program that would help in
managing depression among the specific gender cohort effectively.
Prevalence of depression in a gender-based analysis:
Australia is found to be the second nation all over the globe with the highest number of
people suffering from depression with 5.9% of the people being affected. This number is just
after the nation of Ukraine that has the largest number of depressed population accounting for
about 6.3% in the nation. Researchers who have undertaken statistical analysis have shown that
about 1 in 7 people in the nation of Australia experience symptoms of depression throughout
their lifetime (Bruggman et al., 2017). One of the most noted data from this statistical analysis
had shown that prevalence of depression in women is twice to that of the number of men in the
nation. One of the factor that has been found by researchers to explain this difference is that
mood changes as well as depressed feelings are natural outcomes of the hormonal alterations

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which are more frequent in the women. However, changes in the hormones cannot necessarily be
one of the most important causes of depression. Biological factors along with different forms of
inherited traits and even personal life circumstances are found to develop depression in the
women.
Studies have found that one of the most important cohort of women who largely remain
exposed to the development of the risk of depression are those women who are in their first year
of the post partum stage (Shivappa et al., 2016). Researchers are of the opinion that women who
are in their months of pregnancy as well as those who are in the following year after giving birth
to their babies are often seen to develop depressive symptoms. It has been found that about 1 in
10 women in the first category and those 1 in 7 women in the later categories can be found to
suffer from depression respectively. This form of depression called the antenatal depression
often seems to accompany symptoms like that of the persistent and generalized concern as well
as the panic attacks about the development and well-being of the child (Williams et al., 2015).
Other symptoms are seen to include the abrupt mood swings, compulsive behaviors, low mood,
feelings of sadness, nervousness of the situation and many others. This is indeed one of the most
harmful and dangerous phases for the mothers as they are found to develop suicidal tendencies.
In such situations, it becomes extremely important to provide as much mental and physical
support to such mothers to help them overcome such depressive phase successfully.
Society can be held equally responsible for the development of depression among the
women. One of the most important contributing factors is the expectations set by the society
about the job roles and responsibilities set for males and females (Chang et al., 2017). The
expectations dictate women to be associated with the responsibilities of home-making with
serving their duties to the family members, spouse, children and others, attending to their needs,

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caring for their comfort and many others. This often leaves time for the women to care for their
own selves and take out time for earning for themselves or being dedicated to their likings and
hobbies. In order to avoid societal criticism and discriminations, women tend to suppress their
wishes, likings and career opportunities and continue attending to families. This results in
emotional turmoil and depression in women (Yelland et al., 2015). Another factor that also
creates depression is the gender biased discrimination like that pay gaps experienced by women
in the nation of Australia. Evidences of less pay for women when sharing same responsibilities in
offices, inhibition of promotion of women to higher positions in organizations, negative
comments-abuses—bullying and sexual harassments in the offices also make such women
withdraw themselves from meeting their aspirations. This factor mainly contributes to depression
among the women population in the nation which is not experienced by the males to such an
extent. Another factor that also results in depression among the women is the rising prevalence
of domestic violence and abuse in the nation affecting both the physical and mental health of
women of the nation. Data shows 1 in every 4 women had experienced emotional abuse and 1 in
5 women have experienced sexual violence from their current as well as former partners since
the age of 15 (Edwards et al., 2015). About 85% of the women in the nation have been sexually
harassed and 40% of the women had continued to experience violence from their partners even
when temporarily separated. Intimate partner violence had already leaded to contribution of
illness, disability; depression as well as premature deaths aged 18-44. Hence, such violence of
women had been another major contributor to development of depression on the women.

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Models for health promotion: Program “Women power”
This model of health promotion mainly takes place in five important steps. Every
important steps guide the policy makers or the health promoters to develop strategies and take
initiatives at all the five levels to ensure helping women of the nation to overcome depression.
 The first step is called the interpersonal or that of the individual factors which influence
the knowledge, attitudes, personality as well as the beliefs of the women. It is very
important for women to identify that they are suffering from depression. This is because
most of the women of the nation have accepted their emotional turmoil and grief as a part
of their lives where they cannot identify that they are suffering from mental health. hence
every community leaders should develop brochures and pamphlets discussing the
disorder in details and providing checklists which can help women find out whether their
symptoms of depression are present or not (Almeida et al., 2016). They can also arrange
for workshops with eminent speakers to motivate them and change their knowledge,
attitudes, beliefs, and personality. In this way, they would be able to develop the
knowledge about their own heath and this would make them approach for support. It
would help them to learn that domestic violence, pay gap issues, stigmatization of the
roles should not be accepted and that they should be reported to. Changes in values and
beliefs would help such people to tackle their mental health effectively
 The second step is called the interpersonal factors like interactions with other people
which can help to provide support or create barriers in personal growth. For these,
different charitable organizations and peer group supports might initiate initiatives where

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they try to connect with more women suffering from depression. These organizations can
help in identifying the women and can provide them necessary support as much as
possible. Peer group workers have members who have successfully overcome depression
in their live and are now successful (Brijnath et al., 2016). Such people can interact with
already depressed women encouraging them and helping them in every ways possible to
overcome depression. Since they are experiences, they can share their stories and help
make depressed women motivates to bring out changes in their own lives
 The third aspect is institutional as well organizational factors that include rules and
regulations, policies and informal structures that contain or promote the behaviors. Here,
the government needs to publish policies that would aim in mitigating the social factors
contributing to depression. The Department of Health should be instructed in initiating
screening sessions for women in every community to find out the rate of people affected
and as per healthcare services should be arranged immediately (Crome et al., 2015).
Every organization should be monitored by government led monitoring bodies to inspect
issues of bullying, sexual harassment, gender pay gaps, and others. Human resources
system should initiate zero tolerance policies on any violence over women and also
initiate gender pay equality policies.
 The next aspect is the community factors like that formal and social norms that are found
to exit among individuals, organizations and groups which can limit or enhance healthy
behaviors. Communities should initiate health promotion programs like health education
sessions to help women identify depression and understand ways about how to overcome
them. The pamphlets can be circulated which would comprise of details about services,
counselors, therapists and others which can help them to approach for such services. It

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has been found that individuals. Communities should undertake the initiatives to educate
the people about overcoming stigmatization and discrimination about women roles
arranging for talk shows (Landstate et al., 2016). Community healthcare centers should
be instructed to conduct screening sessions for women who are expecting and those who
have delivered their babies for up to two years.
 The next stage is called public policy factors. The local, federal as well as the state should
introduce laws that would regulate as well as support health actions and practices for
early detection, control as well as management for disorders. Policy makers need to
produce strict laws for violence on women, and gender pay gap where they would be
penalizing and punishing the perpetrators (Lovestad et al., 2017). Health policies guiding
women as well as professionals about the initiatives they need to take to overcome
discrimination would be also published. This would help as guiding framework enabling
the vulnerable women to take initiatives for their recovery or for prevention.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it has been seen that depression is higher among women in
the nation. Some of the causes apart from biological influences are socials stigmatization about
roles of women in hones, gender pay gap, sexual harassment and bullying a workplaces and
domestic violence, and post partum depression. With the help of socio-ecological model,
program “women power” had been developed that would help in managing the prevalence of
depression among women in nation.

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