ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Sex bias in pain management decisions.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Sex-specific pain management and outcomes in pediatric elective posterior spinal fusion: a database review.Spine deformity · 2026Pooled it
- [Age and gender aspects in the utilization of emergency departments and their consideration in the management of emergency care].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2026Article
- The national acceptance of pelvic congestion syndrome among other common venous pathologies.Journal of vascular surgery. Venous and lymphatic disorders · 2026Article
- The gender pain gap in prehospital analgesia: the role of patient and provider gender - an analysis of 106,888 helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) missions.BMC medicine · 2026Observational
- Gender, Gender Role Beliefs, and Evaluation of Pain in Others: Indirect and Moderated Pathways.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- The Extent Of Gender/Sex Variables Included In Clinical Algorithms Across Medical Specialties.Health affairs (Project Hope) · 2026Article
- Pain expression and decoding as intergroup phenomena.Affective science · 2026Article
- Pain Experience and Patient-Reported Barriers to Analgesic Use in Emergency Care in Ghana: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Intersectional Bias in Healthcare-The Inequity Borne by the Patients: A Qualitative Study.Journal of oral rehabilitation · 2026Article
- International perspective on healthcare provider gender bias in musculoskeletal pain management: a scoping review.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Prevalence, Characteristics, and Predictive Factors of Dentoalveolar and Spreading Odontogenic Infections in Children Treated Under General Anaesthesia.International journal of paediatric dentistry · 2026Article
- Retrospective Analysis of Disparities in Timing of Prehospital and Emergency Department Pain Management by Sex and Age.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Black Women's Response to the Dismissal and Normalization of their Chronic Pelvic Pain.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Article
- Improving equitable access to comprehensive care for people with advanced breast cancer: a global expert review and call-to-action for 2025-2035 (Goal 9).Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2025Review
- Lack of precision in the reporting of sex and gender in cancer clinical trials with a PRO endpoint: an exploratory literature review.BMC medical research methodology · 2025Review
- Social Vulnerability and Perinatal Risk: Demographic Determinants of the Impact of a Natural Disaster on Pregnant Women.Disaster medicine and public health preparedness · 2025Article
- From Peak to Plunge: A Multi-Database Analysis of State-Level Disparities in Hydromorphone Use in the US.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Innovative design and modelling to improve sex and gender analysis in clinical trials.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Neurophysiology of acute and chronic pain: from genes to pain symptoms.BJA education · 2025Review
- A Literature Review on Pain Management in Women During Medical Procedures: Gaps, Challenges, and Recommendations.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In the pursuit of mental and physical health, effective pain management stands as a cornerstone. Here, we examine a potential sex bias in pain management. Leveraging insights from psychological research showing that females' pain is stereotypically judged as less intense than males' pain, we hypothesize that there may be tangible differences in pain management decisions based on patients' sex. Our investigation spans emergency department (ED) datasets from two countries, including discharge notes of patients arriving with pain complaints (N = 21,851). Across these datasets, a consistent sex disparity emerges. Female patients are less likely to be prescribed pain-relief medications compared to males, and this disparity persists even after adjusting for patients' reported pain scores and numerous patient, physician, and ED variables. This disparity extends across medical practitioners, with both male and female physicians prescribing less pain-relief medications to females than to males. Additional analyses reveal that female patients' pain scores are 10% less likely to be recorded by nurses, and female patients spend an additional 30 min in the ED compared to male patients. A controlled experiment employing clinical vignettes reinforces our hypothesis, showing that nurses (N = 109) judge pain of female patients to be less intense than that of males. We argue that the findings reflect an undertreatment of female patients' pain. We discuss the troubling societal and medical implications of females' pain being overlooked and call for policy interventions to ensure equal pain treatment.
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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.