New study finds men more likely to withhold symptoms from male doctors than female doctors

A recent study finds that the gender of the family doctor can have an impact on how forthcoming the patient is with sharing their health concerns—especially when it comes to male patients. The cross-sectional study, published in PLoS One in April, analyzed data from more than 20,000 patients in France, looking into how the reasons for encounter (RfEs) change are affected by the gender of the physician and the patient. On average, patients presented with 2.6 RfEs per consultation. For both men and women, respiratory issues were the most common complaint, followed by musculoskeletal and general/unspecified symptoms. The biggest finding of the study was that male patients visiting male doctors were found to be “significantly” less likely to report symptoms across nearly half of the clinical categories compared to women. Of this cohort, some of the most commonly withheld symptoms included digestive problems, eye and ear complaints, neurological issues and respiratory issues.On the other hand, when visiting female GPs, the reporting disparities between male and female patients were far smaller, with the exception of ear issues and social issues.“This finding suggests that men patients may have preferences regarding their GP’s gender for certain symptoms or complaints. They may choose a women GP for certain issues, or avoid disclosing certain concerns to men GPs,” the researchers wrote.The female patients typically had higher presentation rates across almost all symptom types compared to men, regardless of the gender of their doctor. Across most categories of issues, there was no difference in the frequency of issues brought up to male GPs compared to female GPs. However, one exception was social issues, such as financial difficulties or experiences with violence, as women were more likely to bring up these concerns to female GPs than male GPs.The researchers suggest that traditional norms of masculinity may explain why men are more likely to withhold symptoms from their male GPs.“In our study, the difference in presentation rates between patients of men and women GPs could be linked to the fact that men visiting a man GP could, consciously or unconsciously, avoid disclosing health complaints that are often stereotyped as feminine, such as migraines or coughing because of concerns about ‘manhood,’” the researchers wrote.Another reason for this discrepancy could be that male patients stereotypically perceive female GPs as “natural caregivers,” the researchers posit.“Men patients may perceive men GPs as less ‘caring’ than female GPs, who are stereotypically and historically associated with caregiving roles and therefore often essentialized as natural caretakers,” they wrote. “We believe that both of these explanations contribute to this double gender effect and need to be addressed by increasing gender awareness in the medical training curricula and, more generally, in society.”

New study finds men more likely to withhold symptoms from male doctors than female doctors

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