Trial reportScientific reports2018
Gender bias in clinicians' pathologization of atypical sexuality: a randomized controlled trial with mental health professionals.
Trial report in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 6 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
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- The range of countermeasures to reduce inequalities in mental health care for socially marginalized or medically vulnerable adults: a PRISMA systematic review.BMC health services research · 2026Pooled it
- Prevalence of first- and second-wave digisexualities in Germany and their relation to Compulsive Sexual Behavior: Findings from a National Online Survey.Journal of behavioral addictions · 2025Article
- A Qualitative Study Into the Relative Stigmatization of Mental Illness by Mental Health Professionals.Qualitative health research · 2024Article
- Assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorder.Assessment · 2024Review
- The stigmatization of mental illness by mental health professionals: Scoping review and bibliometric analysis.PloS one · 2023Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The psychiatric classification of "normal" versus disordered sexual behavior has been a subject of some dispute. Although atypical sexual interests have been viewed traditionally as typically male, epidemiological data indicate its presence in both genders. We examined how gender and sexual orientation influence whether or not atypical sexual behavior is classified as a mental disorder. Mental health professionals (N = 546) were presented with five case vignettes where subjects exhibit paraphilic behaviors; one case with psychotic symptoms served as the control condition. For each vignette we randomly changed the described subject's gender (male/female), sexual orientation (homosexual/heterosexual), and presented diagnostic criteria (fulfilled/ambiguous). Female subjects were significantly less pathologized and overall more stigmatized in terms of exhibitionistic, frotteuristic, sexual sadistic and pedophilic behavior. On the other hand, female sexual behavior that fulfilled diagnostic criteria for masochistic disorder was more pathologized. Our results demonstrate that nosologically irrelevant factors, which may be related to different sexual norms for men and women, affect clinicians' decisions regarding atypical sexuality.
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Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.