International study of physicians' opinion on physician–patient sex concordance when treating athletes

Abstract

BackgroundThe effect of physician‐patient sex concordance in medicine has been reported in many studies. Whether physicians believe that the sex concordance between physician and athlete influences treatment has not been investigated.ObjectiveWhether physicians believe that the sex concordance between physician and athlete influences treatment.DesignCross‐sectional study.SettingOnline surveyParticipants1193 Sports medicine physicians in 51 countries. Participants were sports medicine physicians trained in orthopedics (n = 443 [37.1%]) and nonorthopedics (n = 750 [62.9%])Interventionsn/aMain Outcome MeasuresParticipants were asked to decide whether sex of the physician made them better suited to care for athletes of concordant or different sexes along with their personal background.ResultsOrthopedic sports medicine physicians agreed less than nonorthopedic sports medicine physicians regarding the statement “MALE sports medicine physicians are better suited than their female counterparts to care for MALE athletes” (Odds ratio 0.56, 95 % CI 0.35‐0.91, p = 0.02), and compared to sports medicine physicians based in Europe, those based in Asia agreed more to this statement (OR 7.91, 95 % CI 5.63‐14.79, p = 0.02). In addition, regarding the statement “FEMALE sports medicine physicians are better suited than their male counterparts to care for FEMALE athletes”, compared to sports medicine physicians based in Europe, those based in Asia (OR 9.12, 95 % CI 5.63‐14.79, p = 0.02 ) and North America (OR 2.18, 95 % CI 1.46‐3.25, p < 0.01 ) agreed more and Orthopedic sports medicine physicians agreed less than nonorthopedic sports medicine physicians (OR 0.61, 95 % CI 0.39‐0.93, p = 0.02) to this statement.ConclusionsSports medicine physicians trained in orthopedics agreed less to the importance of sex concordance but those based in Asia agreed to this compared to sports medicine physicians practicing in other regions when the dependents factors were adjusted.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.