A landmark international study reveals that women's pain is routinely underestimated compared to men's, despite equivalent clinical intensity. This bias significantly influences treatment decisions, often to women's detriment.
Women and men experience pain at similar rates. Yet, research published in The Journal of Pain on March 5, 2021, highlights pervasive gender biases in pain assessment within medicine. Conducted by psychologists from China, the United States, and France, the study featured two rigorous experiments.
In the first, around 50 non-medical participants—30 women and 20 men—watched videos of male and female patients displaying comparable shoulder pain intensity. Rating pain on a 0-100 scale, they consistently assigned higher scores to men, undervaluing women's pain.
The second experiment expanded to 197 participants (81 women, 116 men). Beyond pain ratings, participants acted as physicians choosing treatments and completed a 10-question survey to uncover gender stereotypes or biases.
Results mirrored the first experiment: equal pain and expression led to women's pain being underestimated. A key recurring stereotype emerged—women are seen as more vocal about pain than men.
"The more participants believed that women were more willing to report pain than men, the less they perceived patients' pain," the study notes.
Treatment choices revealed further bias: participants prescribed psychotherapy more often to women than men, favoring drugs for men despite identical psychological and health profiles. Researchers link these biases directly to pain estimation errors and suboptimal treatment selection.
