Understanding the Relationship Between Gender and Mental Health in Adolescence: The Gender Adherence Index (GAI) (original) (raw)

Abstract

Introduction Half of all mental health disorders appear during adolescence, although it is still far from clear how they relate to gender (not sex) criteria. This study aims both to analyse the relationship between gender and adolescent mental health and to propose an index: the Gender Adherence Index (GAI). Methods We used cross-sectional, secondary data from 3888 adolescents (aged 13–19) from the FRESC Health Survey on Adolescence in Barcelona. We analysed the interaction among sex, age and socio-economic status with several mental health indices. Additionally, we computed a gender adherence index (GAI) to transcend the information-poor binary sex label and thus assess to what extent mental health can be predicted by the gender expression of adolescents irrespective of their biological sex. Results We found that older age and lower economic status have a greater impact on the emotional distress of girls, who reported lower self-perceived mental health than boys. Nevertheless, girl...

Asuncion Pie balaguer hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let Asuncion know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.