Meaning of Sex for Pediatricians in Puerto Rico: A Misclassification Bias that Might Lead to Health Disparities if not Address

Abstract

Understanding the meaning of the word ‘SEX’ has implications in the effort of eliminating health disparities in health services, and in clinical and translational research. Different studies showed that little is known about how people of varying ages define sex and how this perception can impact the health services that they can bring to their patients. To our knowledge, this is the first study in Puerto Rico in a group of physician as Pediatricians to answer the research question, what beliefs about sex do pediatricians have? Assess attitudes about which sexual behaviours constitute having ‘had sex’ and to examine possible mediating factors (gender, age, giving/receiving stimulation, male ejaculation, female orgasm, condom use or brevity) as defined in a questionnaire used in the Kinsey Institute and translated to Spanish in Puerto Rico for a better understanding. With this study we wanted to provide a glimpse to the conceptions about 'SEX' that healthcare workers have because this will shape the questions and services offered to adolescents. A misclassification bias occurs. Persons are either incorrectly classified as having sex or incorrectly classified as not having sex. In term of females and males by age the YES answer was given to all the 14 questions in the survey. Two of the questions, Q5 Penile-vaginal intercourse Spanish- Tuvo una relación sexual pene-vagina and Q9 Penile-vaginal intercourse with a condom? Spanish-Tuvo una relación sexual pene-vagina con condón were answered by 100% of participants as YES (having Sex). Questions #1 and #2 were the ones with the lowest response rate among males at 64.3% of all male participants. Appear to have significant difference by gender among participants pediatricians in terms of the perception of the meaning of sex among all the questions (14). In general term among all the questions when taken as a whole there is A P=0.037 with 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference of 00340-010532. There appears to be a slight statistical difference by gender among pediatricians in terms of the perception of the meaning of sex among all the questions. The perception of pediatricians by gender is different, that is, men and women don´t think the same in general terms about the meaning of sex. Generally, there was no real consensus on which behaviors qualify as sex.