
Ellen Kosminsky
Faculdade Pernambucana de Saúde, BrazilTitle: Gender role in pain perception and expression: An integrative review
Abstract
Gender seems to play a role in
influencing the response to experimental pain, although this influence is not
very clear yet. Therefore, the objective of the present review was to
investigate the contribution of the gender construct (gender identity/role) in
the experience of pain through the selection and analysis of clinical studies
on the subject. A search was carried out in the databases Medline (via Pubmed),
LILACS (via BVS), and PsycINFO. The search used the following descriptors:
gender identity, pain, gender role combined by the Boolean operator AND/OR
(gender identity) AND pain AND gender role AND pain, in English, Portuguese and
Spanish. At the end of the selection, 11 studies were included for this review.
All the investigations recovered on the subject are clinical laboratory
studies. Regarding the influence of the gender identity and its role in pain
perception, most of the studies (91%) show that this variable was a
contributing factor to the differences observed in perception (tolerance/pain threshold)
and the need to communicate the pain. In experimental pain, a higher degree of
femininity or female social roles are associated with lower thresholds and less
tolerance to pain, as well as a greater natural tendency to communicate pain
sensation. These results are independent of the type of stimulus, ethnicity, or
sexual orientation.
Biography
Ellen Kosminsky is graduating
medical school in Brazil. She works as a writer intern in one of Brazil’s
leading companies in medical education, directed towards medical students
pursuing a specialization. She has published an article in the American Journal
of Psychiatric Research and Reviews.