We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Gender of the Sender: Assessing Gender Biases of Greetings in Patient Portal Messages.
- Authors
Couture, Allison; Birstler, Jen
- Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of the study was to determine if the use of professional titles in patient electronic health record (EHR) messages varied by gender of the physician receiving the message and gender of the patient sending the message. Methods: We conducted a retrospective observational study evaluating 285,744 messages for a patient's greeting to their physician. Logistic regression mixed effects models were fit to estimate the relationship between title use and gender. Results: Female physicians received 189,442 (66%), and female patients sent 183,579 (64%) messages. Female physicians received an average of 1754 messages each (sd = 1615, median [IQR] = 1624 [255–3040]), which was significantly more than the average 1235 messages for males (sd = 1527, median [IQR] = 385 [103–1857], Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon p-value = 0.006). Female patients were more likely to send messages using professional titles (OR = 1.37, CI = 1.28–1.47, p < 0.001). Female physicians were no more likely than male physicians to receive professional titles (OR = 1.06, CI = 0.89–1.27, p = 0.500). Conclusions: Female physicians received significantly more EHR messages than men, and female patients were more likely to use a professional title when addressing their physician, regardless of gender. Across all patients, physician gender did not influence the rate of professional title used.
- Subjects
SCIENTIFIC observation; CONFIDENCE intervals; PHYSICIAN-patient relations; MANN Whitney U Test; RETROSPECTIVE studies; COMPARATIVE studies; SEX discrimination; COMMUNICATION; PROFESSIONAL identity; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; RESEARCH funding; ELECTRONIC health records; LOGISTIC regression analysis; ODDS ratio
- Publication
Journal of Women's Health (15409996), 2023, Vol 32, Issue 2, p171
- ISSN
1540-9996
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1089/jwh.2022.0333