The association of gender concordance and primary care physicians' perceptions of their patients

Abstract

In this article, we examined the effect of gender concordance on physicians' perception of their patients and of their medical condition, analyzing a data set of 8,258 visit questionnaires from the New Zealand National Primary Care Medical Care Survey conducted in 2001 2002. Multivariate analysis indicated that the concordant female patient/female physician dyad had a positive independent association with physicians' reporting high rapport and a negative independent association with reporting uncertainty about the diagnosis. The discordant female patient/male physician dyad had a positive independent association with physicians' perceptions of uncertainty of diagnosis and hidden agenda, and a negative independent association with rating the patient's condition of high severity. The findings suggest a need to raise male physicians' awareness to possible biases when treating female patients. The findings also suggest the need to empower female patients to take an active partnership role to improve their communication with male physicians.