TUESDAY, Aug. 13, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Female patients are consistently less likely to receive painkillers than men with similar complaints, a new study finds.

An analysis of more than 21,000 patient records revealed that women across every age group are less likely than men to be prescribed pain meds, even if they’re suffering similar ailments, researchers reported recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A follow-up experiment inspired by that finding revealed that nurses, in particular, tend to overlook women’s pain.

"Our research reveals a troubling bias in how women's pain is perceived and treated in emergency care settings," said researcher Shoham Choshen-Hillel, a professor with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"This under-treatment of female patients' pain could have serious implications for women's health outcomes, potentially leading to longer recovery times, complications or chronic pain conditions,” Choshen-Hillel added in a university news release.

For the experiment, more than 100 nurses were asked to evaluate patients’ pain based on clinical vignettes.

The nurses tended to rate pain less intense if the patient was female, which researchers said suggests that gender stereotypes are driving this bias.

Further, nurses were 10% less likely to record pain scores for female patients than male patients, which could result in inadequate treatment, researchers said.

Female patients also tend to spend an average half-hour longer in an emergency department than men, researchers found. This could be due to their pain or symptoms being taken less seriously, the team speculated.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more about pain management.

SOURCE: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, news release, Aug. 9, 2024