At least 6 million men in the US suffer from a depression every year. Researcches have shown that though men and women develop the standard depression signs, still they suffer from depression in different ways and thus men and women need different methods of treating depression symptoms.
Generally men are more eager to acknowledge sleep disturbances, fatigue, loss of interest in hobbies and job, irritability rather than such feelings as excessive guilt, worthlessness, sadness and so on. Some scientist doubt whether the standard depression definition and different diagnostic tests that base on this definition adequately cover the conditions related to depression in men.
In fact men are more prone than women to have drug and alcohol abuse and dependence in the life; but there are disputes among researchers whether substance use is a sign of depression in men, or it is a kind of co-occurring condition which is more common in men. Nonetheless, substance use always masks depression and makes it more difficult to detect depression as a disorder requiring special treatment.
Men usually do not acknowledge certain feelings, do not ask for help, and they are unwilling to seek any appropriate treatments, very often they just turn to drugs or alcohol when they feel depressed and become angry, discouraged, irritable, frustrated, and in some cases even violently abusive. Sometimes men cope with depressive state throwing themselves into work, trying to hide depression from themselves, from their friends and family; in other cases men might be engaged in taking risks, reckless behavior, etc.
4 times more men than women die through suicide in the US, although women are prone to suicide attempts. The methods for suicide used by men are more lethal than the methods women use. But there are other factors protecting women from suicide death. The researches indicate that suicide is quite often related to depression, a really alarming rate of suicide among men prove that men are mostly unwilling to seek any depression treatments. A number of men having depression do not get an appropriate diagnosis or some treatments that might save their lives.
More researches are necessary to reveal all factors causing depression in men, for instance how men react to feelings and stress attributing to depression, how to induce them to acknowledge these feelings and get necessary help, how to educate doctors to better diagnose and cure depression in men. Friends, family members and colleagues can also detect the signs of depressive state in men and may help them to get necessary treatments.