User:Teaghanf12/Undertreatment of pain

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= Gender =

History/ Background
There are disparities in the quality of healthcare between sexes and genders, and because pain is one of the most common reasons for people to seek healthcare, accessibility dictates whether one receives necessary treatment. Research shows that there are biological differences in the experience of pain both along biological sex lines and along gender identity lines. Under treatment of pain correlates to socially constructed gendered expectations built throughout centuries. The Yellow Wallpaper is the most famous narrative of a woman being treated for hysteria, an ethically problematic diagnosis that was the precursor or introduction to the concept of mental health and its physical symptoms. It is an example of how femininity is medicalized to perpetuate gendered identities.This novel evokes the concept of Hysteria, a term which was used to refer to women’s mental health issues in which they were assigned the narrative of being dramatic, exaggerative, and emotional. There is also evidence to support that social expectations about the expression of pain can dictate patient and doctor responses, linking the treatment of pain to social stereotypes. The way humans are socialized explains why women are assumed to be dramatic because men are taught to silence their pain and their capacity to express themselves has been muted. The University of Gothenburg conducted a study which found that women's pain is evaluated on comparison to men due to the gender-norms which label men as unemotional and women as "hysteric". The consequences of this perception is the assumption that women are either imagining or exaggerating their pain, so that they don’t receive the care they need which is a sentiment that still exists today and plays into why women are undertreated for their pain.

Treatment Disparities
Research shows that women are much more likely than men to be prescribed sedatives instead of pain medication. Doctor Calderone found that male patients that underwent coronary artery bypass grafts received narcotics more readily than females, and the female patients received sedative agents more often, hinting at anxiety being the root of their problems instead of pain. Additionally, women are 13 to 25 percent less likely than men to receive strong “opioid” pain medication. Even today women are more likely than men to be gaslit that the pain they are experiencing is all in their head. Women who were emitted to the emergency room with severe stomach pain had to wait 33% longer than men with the same symptoms. Females are also expected to endure more pain as a result of their biological processes, like giving birth and the effects of their menstrual cycle, in addition to the pain that comes with injury, illness, disease, that men experience aside from biological processes. The female experience of having to differentiate between normal biological pain and outside pain (illness, disease, etc.) is an experience unique to women which is why they are most often gaslit into believing the pain from injury, illness or disease comes from the processes and the pain they are expected to tolerated associated with birthing and menstrual cycles.

Under-Representation of Women in Studies
Medical knowledge is collected through studies on biologically male bodies which raises concerns of applicability of this knowledge to biologically female bodies. Historically, women have been underrepresented in clinical studies, meaning that their experience of pain and their reaction to various medications is less understood.

Chronic Pain
Additionally, chronic pain, and conditions of chronic pain, are more common in women, but the rates of chronic pain and the differences in experience between men and women are not well documented. Chronic pain in women may also be attributed to reproductive issues like Polycystic ovary syndrome, Endometriosis, Menopause, Dysmenorrhea, even when these are not related to the pain women are experiencing.