This study examined the extent to which clinicians mentioned patients' physical attractiveness in intake mental status evaluations. Mental status reports were examined for 50 male and 50 female randomly chosen patients admitted to an urban community mental health center (CMHC) during the same year. Analysis was done to examine the effect of sex of patient, sex of clinician, and their interaction on mention of attractiveness and other related variables. The attractiveness of female patients was mentioned significantly more than that of male patients. Female clinicians were significantly more likely than male clinicians to mention patients' attractiveness and interpersonal style, and female clinicians used more descriptive adjectives overall. No interaction between patients' gender and clinicians' gender was found. Additional findings were that clinicians used more adjectives overall to describe better-educated patients and that they described more fully the physical appearance of better-educated patients. Implications of possible gender and class bias are noted and their clinical relevance is discussed.
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