Women Have Higher Rates of Post-Traumatic Stress

Even though men are more likely to experience a traumatic event, women are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a report in the Psychological Bulletin.

"Men and women might react to traumas in very different ways," says study author David Tolin, Ph.D., director of the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn.

"The way the diagnosis is currently written may stack the deck for more symptom endorsement in women," he says of the study covered in the American Psychological Association journal.

But, he adds, "The diagnosis of PTSD is a work in progress. It has changed with each edition of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ), and that's a good thing. It means we're actively thinking about it and working on it."

Reliving Bad Experiences

Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder caused by a traumatic event, such as a sexual assault, an accident, a combat experience, or witnessing or being a victim of other violent events.

Symptoms of the disorder include reliving the experience in your mind over and over again, feeling numb emotionally, having difficulty with personal relationships, and sleep difficulties, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Tolin and his colleague, Edna Foa, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, reviewed 25 years of studies done on PTSD to see if there were any significant gender differences.

This included 290 studies done between 1980 and 2005. During that time period, the researchers found that women had a twofold higher risk of being diagnosed with PTSD compared to men.

The researchers wondered if that was because women experienced more traumatic events than men did.

So, they went back to the previous studies and re-examined them to see which gender experienced the most traumatic events. This analysis found that men had a 23 percent higher chance of having been involved in a traumatizing event than women.

This finding caused the researchers to wonder whether women experience certain traumatic events more than men did, and the answer was yes, according to Dr. Tolin.

"Women and girls were much more likely to be sexually assaulted, raped, or be sexually abused during childhood,” he says. “Men and boys were much more likely to be involved in serious accidents, physically assaulted, or see other people injured or killed.”

However, it did not appear that the type of traumatic event is what causes the higher rates of PTSD in women.

"When we look at men and women who have experienced the same kind of traumatic events, we still see a higher rate in women than in men,” notes Dr. Tolin. “However, that wasn't true for sexual abuse or assault. PTSD seems to develop equally after those experiences.”

Men and Women Express Differently

Anie Kalayjian, Ed.D., an expert in traumatic stress and author of Disaster and Mass Trauma: Global Perspectives in Post Disaster Mental Health Management, says she believes men and women likely have similar rates of traumatic stress, but express it differently.

"I feel there is no difference in the experiencing of trauma, just a difference in the expression of that trauma," she says.

For example, she explains, "A week ago, one of my client couples, a husband and a wife, were in a car accident.

"The husband's friends told him, 'Let's go get a drink, forget about it,' and they watched football, yelled, screamed and carried on," she says. "The wife called her girlfriend, who came over, and they talked about it. How men and women express and let out the trauma is different."

The good news, says Dr. Tolin, is that there are effective treatments that "have proven helpful for both men and women. In most cases, the symptoms of PTSD resolve over time. In some people, the symptoms persist. For those people, there are treatments that work."

Always consult your physician for more information.