Gender verschillen in primair en gespecialiseerd zorggebruik vanwege psychische problemen, gekaderd in Europa

The consumption of mental health care and psychotropic drugs is higher in women. Differences in need only explain a part of this gender gap. Additional explanations are often sought in gender role theories. Traditionally, women are expected to be more emotional and dependent and to have a higher willingness to adopt the sick-role. Contrastingly, characteristics of the stereotypical male identity, like autonomy and emotional independence are associated with lowered help seeking behavior. Women are also more likely to be in lower socio-economic positions and primary health care use is more prevalent among the socio-economic deprived, while specialized care use is higher among the high educated and the wealthy. These gender roles and socio-economic inequalities might vary across countries and can be differently related to mental health care use depending on the national health care system. Using a multilevel framework based on data of the Eurobarometer 248 (2005-2006), we examine the gender disparity in mental health care use (GP, psychiatrist, psychologist, psychotropic drugs, psychotherapy) in 29 European countries. We additionally analyze how need factors and socio-economic/demographic individual-level characteristics influence mental health care use and how they vary cross-nationally and by gender. Preliminary results indicate substantial cross-national variation in the gender gap in mental health care utilization. Largest gender differences were found in Austria, Portugal and Greece, while no gender gap was found in Italy and Luxembourg. The gender difference was most pronounced in the use of psychotropic drugs and a GP, and much smaller in more specialized mental healthcare use, such as a psychiatrist