Men Underrepresented in Psychological Research Studies

Research shows that men are far less likely to seek therapy than women when confronted with anxiety, depression, anger or other psychological problems. Although this clearly suggests that many men are being undertreated for significant mental health issues, this dynamic also affects the field of research. C. Edward Watkins, Jr. Ph.D., of the University of North Texas, recently asked an essential question, “How many men have actually been involved in short-term and long-term psychodynamic treatment research?” Watkins looked at 86 separate studies from six reviews over the last ten years to find an answer. “Those six reviews/meta-analyses were selected for scrutiny because they covered a broad spectrum of disorders (mental and physical), have received considerable attention in the medical, psychiatric, and psychological literature, and have appeared in what are well-respected, peer-reviewed medical, psychiatric, or psychoanalytic journals,” said Watkins.

Watkins realized that overall women were represented more than men in clinical studies, 60% versus 40%. Additionally, Watkins noticed that a large portion of the studies that did have male subjects tended to focus on addiction issues, leaving many other psychological treatment studies void of male data. Overall, he found that 11% of the studies had no male participants at all, and 23% of the studies only contained data from six males or less. “We clearly see here both positives and negatives to our picture,” said Watkins. “Male research participants tend to be more difficult to secure than females in psychological research generally; that appears to be no less so for both short-term and long-term psychodynamic treatment research. In our efforts to amass the most complete, fully informed, and ever-informative female and male psychodynamic treatment database upon which to draw, that may well be an enduring problem with which we as researchers will have to continue to struggle and work to creatively address in the decades ahead.”

Reference:

Watkins, C. E., Jr. (2011, August 29). THE STUDY OF MEN IN SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY: A Brief Research Note. Psychoanalytic Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0025183

© Copyright 2011 by By John Smith. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org.

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  • allen

    September 9th, 2011 at 9:05 PM

    I have definitely seen how less likely men are to seek help compared to women. I think us as men feel that we should handle problems ourselves and that by seeking medical health we are showing a sign of defeat. I know because this is how I used to feel.

    My general attitude was..
    If you were addicted to something you should use your willpower to stop.
    If you were afraid of something you should face your fear to overcome it.

    While this worked for some stuff, I realized most of the time medical attention is easier, more effective and just plain better. So to any men out there who are facing a problem, just try therapy. It doesn’t make you any less of a man, if anything it makes you more mature for knowing when you need help. If you think its stupid after trying it fine , nobodies making you do it forever, at least you tried it. And besides you might be able to help increase the research available about men in the process.

  • Anna K

    September 10th, 2011 at 11:47 AM

    Men are pretty stubborn when it comes to seeking any kind of medical health and treatment. But that has not stopped the medical field from having far more cases studies on men regarding things like heart disease and cancer than they have ever had on women. I am not saying that this is fair, but now they know how women have felt misrepresented and maybe even misunderstood all of these years when it comes to specific health care services.

  • Audrey Knowles

    September 10th, 2011 at 3:23 PM

    The problem as I see it is that men are less forthcoming about suffering from mental problems than women are. If they feel like that in general, they won’t be in any rush to hold their hands up and volunteer to participate in a study. Women talk easily with friends and family about their anxiety, anger and depression. Guys don’t. It’s that simple.

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