There were several gender differences in the psychiatric comorbidities, clinical characteristics, risk factors, and treatment- utilization patterns among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults with lifetime AD. We highlight 4 major findings: (i) After adjusting for gender differences in sociodemographic characteristics and in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the general population, women with AD had a higher risk than men with AD for most externalizing disorders; (ii) Although men with AD started to drink at earlier ages than women, and women tended to remit earlier than men, the course and clinical presentation of AD was otherwise similar in men and women; (iii) Women endorsed more risk factors for AD than men; and (iv) Treatment-utilization rates were low, especially for women. Furthermore, stigmatization was more likely to be endorsed by women as a reason not to seek treatment.
