Consistent Sex Disparity Seen in Pain Management

TUESDAY, Aug. 13, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- A consistent sex disparity is seen in pain management, with women less likely to be prescribed pain-related medications than men, according to a study published online Aug. 5 in PNAS.

Mika Guzikevits, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and colleagues examined a potential sex bias in pain management using data from two emergency department datasets from two countries, for 21,851 patients arriving with pain complaints.

The researchers found that a consistent sex disparity emerged across these datasets. Compared with men, female patients were less likely to be prescribed pain-relief medications. Even after adjustment for patients' reported pain scores and patient, physician, and emergency department variables, this disparity persisted. The disparity extended across medical practitioners, with fewer pain-relief medications prescribed to women than men by both male and female physicians. In additional analyses, female patients' pain scores were 10 percent less likely to be recorded by nurses, and compared with men, female patients spent an additional 30 minutes in the emergency department. The hypothesis was reinforced in a controlled experiment employing clinical vignettes, showing that 109 nurses judged pain of female patients to be less than that of male patients.

"The findings join mounting evidence of discrimination against females in the medical system and in other areas," the authors write. "Undertreatment of females' pain bears immediate implications for the health care system and broad implications for society's attitude toward female pain."

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