Abstract
Introduction: Different mental diseases are more common in male than female, without any strong explanation to support this phenomenon.
Objective: Expose an up-date synthesis of the main defining hypothesis related to gender differences on psychopathology in childhood.
Methods: Publications between 1990 - 2003 focused in the understanding of these differences were reviewed manually and through Medline or Proquest databases using the following key words: gender – sex differences – psychopathology.
Results: 85 articles were found. Epidemiology of psychopathologic gender differences and the main hypothesis are described.
Conclusions: Due to the fact that most disturbances dominating in boys are early and persistent diseases, it is possible that they are related to neurodevelopment deficiencies. Important questions remain related to this subject, especially the causes of these development alterations, their relationship with environmental factors and the apparent discontinuity of female psychopathology from childhood to adolescence.
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Copyright (c) 2005 Revista Chilena de Pediatría