Abstract
Background: Experimental research shows that laywomen express higher levels of empathy than men to pain suffering behaviors in others and female practitioners interact with and may prescribe different levels of pain medication to patients than male practitioners. Objectives: In this study we conduct a small medical records review to examine the possibility that female emergency department nurses assign lower levels (i.e., more urgent, serious, resource extensive) of emergency severity index (ESI) scores of patients presenting for care in the emergency department than male nurses, raising the possibility that patients receive disparate treatment during triage depending on the gender of medical staff. Methods: The patient-provided pain scores and the examiner-determined ESI scores of forty-eight male, emergency department patients (21-89yrs, Mage = 57.2, SDage = 19.3) were examined across multiple visits, along with the gender of their triage examiner at each visit of (127 total patient/provider interactions). Results: A cross-classified mixed-effects model to analyze the influence of examiner gender on the triage scores that showed a significant Examiner Gender x Patient Age interaction. Further probing showed that female practitioners ascribed significantly lower ESI scores than male practitioners, although this effect was limited to patients younger than 55 years of age. Conclusion: These findings warrant larger-scale investigations of patient and examiner influences on patient treatment, which are necessary for creating more standardized protocols for reliably assessing emergency-care patients and for reducing health disparities in patient treatment quality.
Highlights
Women observers have been reported to judge the pain suffering behaviors of others as more severe than male observers [1]
In order to examine the proportion of variance in triage scores that is due to either patient effects or examiner effects, we first computed intraclass correlations (ICCs)
This model showed that 15% of the variance in triage scores was due to differences between patients, and 13% of the variance in triage scores was due to differences between examiners
Summary
Women observers have been reported to judge the pain suffering behaviors of others as more severe than male observers [1]. In addition to gender differences in pain empathizing, people subjected to experimental pain stimuli are more likely to demonstrate heightened pain sensitivity when they are processed by a female researcher [9,10,11], and even minimal procedural interactions with female laboratory personnel (e.g., processing consent forms) and mere exposure to a female’s voice during experimental pain tasks can lead to hyperalgesia [12, 13]. These findings can be understood from a social-signaling perspective of pain expression and pain empathizing behaviors. Conclusion: These findings warrant larger-scale investigations of patient and examiner influences on patient treatment, which are necessary for creating more standardized protocols for reliably assessing emergency-care patients and for reducing health disparities in patient treatment quality
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
