Men are from Mars, women from Venus, when it comes to sickness

A new research has showed that gender and personality makes a huge difference on how people cope with physical and mental illness.

The study conducted by Washington State University (WSU) explained that men are less likely to get affected by a single-symptom illness than women, but are more affected when more than one symptom is present than women.

Robert Rosenman, WSU professor in the Department of Economic Sciences said that women are more impacted by illness than men, unless more than one symptom is present, whereas men are more impacted than women.

Rosenman added that most importantly the personality of women affects how they handle becoming sick, while men of all types reacts the same.

The researchers observed that women with high levels of agreeableness, experience high quality relationships in their lives, and women low levels of conscientiousness, have little need for achievement, persistence.

Rosenman explained that women with high agreeableness likely have better social networks and therefore more support for coping with mental illness, whereas women with low levels of conscientiousness are more apt to feel out of control on a daily basis, so they likely don't see any impact from a mental illness.