Sex bias in pain management decisions (2 July 2024)

Summary

Physicians treat men and women differently when it comes to pain — women in hospital wait longer to be seen and are less likely to receive pain medication than men, finds a study comparing how pain is perceived and treated in male and female patients.

The findings, published Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlight how our perception of others’ experiences of pain can be affected by unconscious bias.

“Women are viewed as exaggerating or hysterical and men are viewed as more stoic when they complain of pain,” says co-author Alex Gileles-Hillel, a physician-scientist at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Further reading on the hub:

• Dangerous exclusions: The risk to patient safety of sex and gender bias
• Unconscious bias: gynaecological pain, the elephant in the womb!
• Pain bias: The health inequality rarely discussed