Evidence from past economic recessions shows that increased risk of mental distress is likely to occur. Until now, little is known whether distress levels differ by gender in countries highly hit by the economic recession.

The aim of the study was to characterize and analyze the differences in mental health distress in men and women during the current economic recession in Portugal.

A subsample of 911 participants from the 2008 national mental health survey, were re-interviewed in 2014/2015. Sociodemographic data was collected and mental health distress was evaluated using the 10-item Kessler's Psychological Distress Scale (K10). Chi-square statistics were used to investigate differences between men and women in mental distress as a categorical variable.

Mean mental distress differed significantly according to gender, Chi² (1)=13.716, P=0.001. The results showed that a much higher proportion of women (18.5%) revealed to be under psychological distress compared to men (9.9%).

Distress levels during the economic crisis in Portugal differ significantly by gender. More women reported to be distressed compared to men. There are several hypotheses for a differential expression of psychological distress between women and men during the recession, such as different gender roles which asserts that differences are due to gender and country based coping resources but also due to several determinants of mental health such as income, employment and social status. Further research is needed to better predict a variety of characteristics that are important for this outcome.