Women and Pain Treatment

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Samulowitz A, Gremyr I, Eriksson E, Hensing G. "Brave Men" and "Emotional Women": A Theory-Guided Literature Review on Gender Bias in Health Care and Gendered Norms towards Patients with Chronic Pain. Pain Res Manag. 2018;2018:6358624. Published 2018 Feb 25. doi:10.1155/2018/6358624

This article explores both sex differences in the experience of pain, but also how gender norms and perceptions influence the treatment received. Women are known to dominate the diagnoses of chronic pain, and it is also known that there are many biological factors that influence different aspects of pain. Pain is subjective, and can be influenced by social factors. These can contribute to differences in treatment of pain by physicians. The article concludes that traditional gender roles need to not be considered as a factor when treating pain.

Weisse, C. S., Sorum, P. C., & Dominguez, R. E. (2003). The influence of gender and race on physicians’ pain management decisions. The Journal of Pain, 4(9), 505–510. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2003.08.002

This article examines whether gender or race affects the physicians' treatment plan for patients. The article finds less support for the notion that minorities and women are treated less aggressively. Instead, the article finds that the physicians gender identity effected how they treated patients. These findings go further than previous studies by including the physicians gender and race in the observations. There are some limitations to this study.

Diane E. Hoffmann, Anita J. Tarzian. The Girl Who Cried Pain: A bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain. Blackwell Publishing. Published in 2001.
This article examines a few factors surrounding gender, pain, and treatment. The article looks into biological contributions to pain as well as social contributions to pain. It them goes to address the social view of pain perception of men vs women. It goes further to explore how these factors effect treatment. It finds that despite reporting more pain, women's pain is treated less aggressively than their male counterparts.

Katarina Hamberg, Gunilla Risberg, Eva E. Johansson, and Göran Westman.Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine.Sep 2002.653-666.http://doi.org/10.1089/152460902760360595

This article set out to determine if women and men were being treated differently due to gendered stereotyping. They used neck pain as a lens to look deeper into the issue. The research was conducted in a controlled setting off of prewritten scenarios. They discovered significant gender differences. Both male and female physicians contributed to the gendered differances.

Kathleen A Raftery, Rebecca Smith-Coggins, Alice HM Chen,Gender-Associated Differences in Emergency Department Pain ManagementAnnals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 26, Issue 4, 1995, Pages 414-421, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-0644(95)70107-9 The study described in this article looks into the patient or provider gender is correlated with the number, type and strength of medications given to patience in the emergency department for headache, neck pain, or back pain. This study was a prospective cohort study at the Stanford University Hospital. The study found that female patients reported more pain, and were given more medication. This shows that physicians responded more to perceived pain than to gender stereotypes. This goes against the hypothesis of women receiving less medication.

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Patient Pain in Primary Care: Factors That Influence Physician Diagnosis

Klea D. Bertakis, Rahman Azari, Edward J. Callahan

The Annals of Family Medicine May 2004, 2 (3) 224-230; DOI: 10.1370/afm.66

This article examines what different factors are considered when diagnosing pain. The study used a university medical center clinic as the setting of their research. It was randomized and measures were taken to make sure there were no confounding factors. The study found that there were many different factors that affected the diagnosis of pain. These factors included patient pain, patient gender, and physician practice style.

Brian D Earp, MSc, M.Phil, Joshua T Monrad, Marianne LaFrance, PhD, John A Bargh, PhD, Lindsey L Cohen, PhD, Jennifer A Richeson, PhD, Featured Article: Gender Bias in Pediatric Pain Assessment, Journal of Pediatric Psychology, Volume 44, Issue 4, May 2019, Pages 403–414, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsy104 This article examines potential biases in adult observer ratings of children's pain. A possible gender bias has been observed in previous studies, so to further explore this finding the study replicates the previous experiment. The experiment reenforced previous findings. In conclusion, the article found that adults rated a child described as a boy to be experiencing more pain as compared to a child described as a girl. This shows explicit gender stereotypes may bias adult assessment of children's pain.

This study examined how men and women perceived experimentally induced pain in male and females subjects. It aimed to specifically determine the accuracy of observed pain ratings, the interactions between the sex of the viewer and sex of the subject, and gender biases. The sample size was fairly small (29 participants). This article supports the idea that gender role-related expectations influence pain perception. They found that gendered stereotypes were of significant influence on perceived pain.

Michael E Robinson, Emily A Wise,

Gender bias in the observation of experimental pain,

Pain,

Volume 104, Issues 1–2,

2003,

Pages 259-264,

ISSN 0304-3959,

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3959(03)00014-9.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304395903000149)

Calderone, K.L. The influence of gender on the frequency of pain and sedative medication administered to postoperative patients. Sex Roles 23, 713–725 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289259

This study examines whether pain and sedative medication is administered to CABG postoperative patients differently dependent on their gender. It was hypothesized that men would receive medication more frequently than women. It was also hypothesized that female patients are more likely treated with sedatives rather than pain medication. Both hypothesis were supported by the study. There were also correlations with age and receiving pain medication.

Physicians' Attitudes Toward Female Patients. Barbara Bernstein, M.D., Robert Kane, M.D.
Medical Care Journal, June 1981.

This article examines the effect a patients sex has on the treatment and evaluation of a patient. The hypothesis is that physicians use the medical system to reinforce the stereotype that women are helpless and less competent than men and are more burdensome patients. The study found that physicians rated as much more likely to have psychosomatic complaints. They also rated women to be more likely to report minor complaints. The findings of this study supported its hypothesis.