Kashish Sharma
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Some studies have shown that people perceive others’ pain through non-verbal cues like facial expressions. Women have often been judged for catastrophizing and exaggerating pain using extreme facial expressions more than their male counterparts
A new movie starring Ayushmann Khurrana as the lead has hit cinemas past week. The film is close to success at the box office for both its unconventional theme and cinematic performance. The movie shows the lead as a male gynaecologist coming to terms with his role in a field that is essentially woman-dominated. While the film effectively deals with taboos around losing the 'male touch' in treating women patients, the film also brings up an issue that has been in conversation for a long time among researchers, how pain is viewed differently in women.
The movie has scenes showing heavily pregnant women fake-crying to attract the attention of doctors, a few of them being snubbed by a nurse for exaggerating their pain. While in some cases it might be true, studies over time have shown that pain in women is likely to be taken less seriously than in their male counterparts.
Pain is an unpleasant experience usually caused by tissue damage. If the pain is chronic and extends over time, it can diminish the quality of one's life. Studies have shown for a long that pain has never been felt the same by all. The experience of pain and the medical attention one might get for it have differed across genders. As per studies, when women are in pain, they are less likely to be offered effective opioid painkillers. Studies also show that they are more likely to wait longer in emergency rooms than their male counterparts to get intervention for pain.
Gender bias in the estimation of pain has been a major hindrance in providing effective pain care to women. Some studies have shown that women are more likely to be prescribed sedatives than offered painkillers. As per reports, chronic pain in women is often underestimated. A study conducted in the States shows that on average, women wait for 65 minutes before getting an analgesic for abdominal pain in the emergency room while men wait for 49 minutes.
As per a study Gender Biases in Estimation of Others' Pain, published in the Journal of Pain, caregiving and interpretation of pain is based on the caretaker's perception which is not free from biases based on sex, gender, race and other factors. As per the study, such biases have long led to the under-recognition and undertreatment of pain among women. There have been certain beliefs around the willingness of men and women to express pain and also the extent to which they can tolerate pain. A good number of studies have shown that women are more likely to get psychological treatment for their pain than being prescribed a painkiller. Here are a few possible reasons for this disparity-
A classic case study was reported by an international media outlet and shows how physical pain among women has been taken less seriously over time. A woman named Naomi Musenga who was in her twenties had once called Strasbourg's ambulance service with severe stomach pain and said: "I'm going to die". The operator on the other who was probably overworked reverted by saying that everybody has to die one day. When the woman was finally taken to a hospital after a five-hour wait, she developed serious complications and died because of multiple organ failure.
In an experiment conducted in the United States, around 50 participants not from the healthcare sector were shown a series of short video clips, each depicting a real patient's face in chronic shoulder pain. Even when the intensity of pain was the same among men and women, pain in women was seen as less severe. On a scale of 0 to 100, from absolutely no pain to the worst pain possible, male patients were given a pain score more than two points higher, on average, than their female counterparts. The second part of the study included 197 participants, among which three were healthcare workers and more than half of the participants chosen were suffering from some acute or chronic pain. This time, the participants were not just asked to scale the pain in the video clips but also asked to choose between medicine and therapy for the patients in the video clip. The result showed that women were 4 per cent more likely than male patients to be prescribed psychotherapy.