Gender differences in demographic and clinical features and prescribing patterns of psychotropic medications in patients with major depressive disorder in China.

Xiang YT, Wang G, Guo T, Hu C, Ungvari GS, Kilbourne AM, Lai KY, Wong SY, Si TM, Zheng QW, Chen DF, Fang YR, Lu Z, Yang HC, Hu J, Chen ZY, Huang Y, Sun J, Wang XP, Li HC, Zhang JB, Chiu HF. Gender differences in demographic and clinical features and prescribing patterns of psychotropic medications in patients with major depressive disorder in China. Comprehensive psychiatry. 2013 Nov 1; 54(8):1198-202.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

PURPOSE: Little is known about gender differences associated with major depressive disorder (MDD) in China. This study examined gender differences associated with other demographic and clinical characteristics and psychotropic drug treatment in Chinese patients with MDD. METHODS: A total of 1178 patients with MDD from 13 psychiatric hospitals or psychiatric units of general hospitals in China nationwide were enrolled. Cross-sectional data including patients' demographic and clinical characteristics and prescriptions of psychotropic medications were recorded using a standardized protocol and data collection procedure. RESULTS: The sample consisted of 793 female and 385 male patients. Univariate analyses revealed that male patients were younger than female patients, had a younger age of onset of depression, had less lifetime depressive episodes and had more bipolar features (i.e. patients who screened positive for hypomanic symptoms on the 32-item Hypomania Checklist, but did not meet the diagnostic criteria for DSM-IV bipolar disorders as measured by the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview). Also, men were more likely to be employed than women and less likely to have depressive episodes following stressful life events. In multivariate analyses, being employed, having bipolar features and not having depressive episodes following stressful life events were independently associated with being a male patient with major depressive disorder. There was no difference in use of psychotropic medications by gender. CONCLUSIONS: Most gender differences in MDD patients in this study are not consistent with findings of Western studies suggesting that gender differences in MDD may be determined by both biological and sociocultural differences among ethnically different patient populations.