ArticlePain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2015
The influence of health care professional characteristics on pain management decisions.
Article in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Healthcare providers' pain management practice and its associated factors in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta- analysis.PloS one · 2024Pooled it
- Labor Pain Management Practices and Associated Factors Among Licensed Obstetric Care Providers in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Health science reports · 2026Review
- International perspective on healthcare provider gender bias in musculoskeletal pain management: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Validation of the Kuopio Questionnaire on Pain Management Attitudes Among Healthcare Personnel in a Finnish Teaching Hospital.Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Analysis of Current Pain Management in Total Knee Arthroplasty in 8 Tertiary Hospitals in China Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Article
- Article
- Observational
- Exploring Factors Associated with Prescribers' Comfort Levels in Analgesic Prescribing in Quebec.Journal of pain research · 2024Article
- Unconscious Bias among Health Professionals: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Developing Digital Therapeutics for Chronic Pain in Primary Care: A Qualitative Human-Centered Design Study of Providers' Motivations and Challenges.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Association of clinical competence, specialty and physician country of origin with opioid prescribing for chronic pain: a cohort study.BMJ quality & safety · 2022Article
- Gender Biases in Estimation of Others' Pain.The journal of pain · 2021Article
- The roles of gender and profession on gender role expectations of pain in health care professionals.Journal of pain research · 2018Article
- Age and preoperative pain are major confounders for sex differences in postoperative pain outcome: A prospective database analysis.PloS one · 2017Article
- Assessment of the Influence of Demographic and Professional Characteristics on Health Care Providers' Pain Management Decisions Using Virtual Humans.Journal of dental education · 2016Article
- Dental opioid prescribing practices and risk mitigation strategy implementation: Identification of potential targets for provider-level intervention.Substance abuse · 2016Article
- Physicians' Attitudes to Clinical Pain Management and Education: Survey from a Middle Eastern Country.Pain research & management · 2016Article
- The Impact of Subject Age, Gender, and Arch Length on Attitudes of Syrian Dentists towards Shortened Dental Arches.International journal of dentistry · 2015Article
- Effect of a perspective-taking intervention on the consideration of pain assessment and treatment decisions.Journal of pain research · 2015Article
- A study of dentists' preferences for the restoration of shortened dental arches with partial dentures.European journal of dentistryArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveEvidence suggests that patient characteristics such as sex, race, and age influence the pain management decisions of health care providers. Although this signifies that patient demographics may be important determinants of health care decisions, pain-related care also may be impacted by the personal characteristics of the health care practitioner. However, the extent to which health care provider characteristics affect pain management decisions is unclear, underscoring the need for further research in this area.
methodsA total of 154 health care providers (77 physicians, 77 dentists) viewed video vignettes of virtual human (VH) patients varying in sex, race, and age. Practitioners provided computerized ratings of VH patients' pain intensity and unpleasantness, and also reported their willingness to prescribe non-opioid and opioid analgesics for each patient. Practitioner sex, race, age, and duration of professional experience were included as predictors to determine their impact on pain management decisions.
resultsWhen assessing and treating pain, practitioner sex, race, age, and duration of experience were all significantly associated with pain management decisions. Further, the role of these characteristics differed across VH patient sex, race, and age.
conclusionsThese findings suggest that pain assessment and treatment decisions may be impacted by the health care providers' demographic characteristics, effects which may contribute to pain management disparities. Future research is warranted to determine whether findings replicate in other health care disciplines and medical conditions, and identify other practitioner characteristics (e.g., culture) that may affect pain management decisions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.