Does gender-specific suicidal symptomatology exist? Initial work on a partially-novel, multi-questionnaire-based characterization of acute suicidal patients

Abstract

Scientific literature suggests more women to be diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) yet more men to commit suicide. Thus, distinct gender-specific symptoms may exist allowing prototypical male depression to evade social and medical detection until it is too late. This study aimed at characterizing gender differences based on self-rating questionnaires in male and female patients with acute suicidal ideations (n = 28; 12 female patients) committed to a local district hospital in Bavaria, Germany from 2021 to 2023. While these patients reported significantly augmented symptoms in the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS), the Gender-Specific Depression Screening (GSDS), the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-II), and the Impulsive Behavior Short Scale-8 (I-8) compared to healthy controls (n = 30; 14 female controls), gender-based differences within the group remained surprisingly scarce. Surprisingly, the GSDS failed to differentiate gender-specific symptoms (ie male-specific depressive symptoms). Suicidal women, however, reported a heightened anger trait and outward directed anger expression (STAXI-II), as well as prominent sensation seeking and urgency (I-8) than suicidal men; symptoms that are viewed as typically male. Conversely, suicidal men primarily expressed inwardly directed anger (ie self-hate; STAXI-II). There is no evidence for self-reported, presumably gender-specific symptomatology in the investigated suicidal mixed-gender patient population.