Gender has a critical role in mental health and mental illness. Gender differences occur predominantly in the rates of common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety related disorders, with the difference concerning depression being one of the strongest findings in psychiatric epidemiology. Besides differences in rates, gender specificities with regard to risk and susceptibility, age of onset, course of the illness and outcome are of great importance. In the same context, psychiatric disorders concerning women's life cycle, pregnancy and postnatal period are an important mental health focus sometimes undervalued by clinicians. The authors aim to explore these issues with regard to recent findings.

Through a literature review the authors look at the reasons behind these gender differences, from biological and social aspects to patterns of help seeking for psychiatric disorder, realizing that women seek more professional help and are more likely to define an experience as an “illness” by one hand and that psychiatrists have more propensity to diagnose and prescribe medication to women by the other hand. A comprehensible overview of specific women psychiatric disorders is also attained.

The need for a multi-level, integrated approach which takes into account specificities of female gender is pointed out, in order to reduce the burden of mental disorders in our societies, greatly accounted by women.