A recent study, led by Professor Shoham Choshen-Hillel from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, analyzed over 20,000 electronic patient records from hospitals in the USA and Israel, revealing significant gender disparities in pain management.

The research found that women are prescribed pain medication less frequently than men, largely due to biases where female patients' pain is often perceived as less intense.

This under-treatment of pain in women can lead to serious health consequences, including prolonged recovery times and chronic pain conditions.

The study highlighted that both male and female physicians exhibit the same biases, prescribing less pain medication to female patients, indicating a systemic issue in pain management.

The research also emphasized that unconscious bias affects the perception and treatment of pain, regardless of the healthcare provider's gender.

The authors of the study are calling for urgent policy interventions and training for healthcare professionals to recognize and counteract these biases in pain management.

Recommendations from the study include revisiting and standardizing pain management protocols to ensure equitable treatment for all patients, regardless of sex.

Diane Hoffmann, a health-care-law researcher, emphasized the importance of addressing bias in medical training to improve pain management outcomes.

In light of these findings, Felix Walcher, president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine, advocates for similar studies in Germany to gather data on pain medication distribution.

Walcher noted that while the study's findings are concerning, it is currently unclear if these results apply to Germany due to a lack of data on gender-specific medication practices in German emergency rooms.

To help mitigate bias, co-author Alex Gileles-Hillel suggests that using computer-generated reminders for physicians may improve the prescribing of pain relief based on reported pain scores.

The study was published in the journal 'PNAS' and underscores that the gender disparity in pain treatment occurs regardless of whether the healthcare provider is male or female.