Low-Educated Women with Chronic Pain Were Less Often Selected to Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation Programs Show others and affiliations
2014 (English) In: PLOS ONE, E-ISSN 1932-6203, Vol. 9, no 5, article id e97134Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Background: There is a lack of research about a potential education-related bias in assessment of patients with chronic pain. The aim of this study was to analyze whether low-educated men and women with chronic pain were less often selected to multidisciplinary rehabilitation than those with high education. Methods: The population consisted of consecutive patients (n = 595 women, 266 men) referred during a three-year period from mainly primary health care centers for a multidisciplinary team assessment at a pain rehabilitation clinic at a university hospital in Northern Sweden. Patient data were collected from the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation National Pain Register. The outcome variable was being selected by the multidisciplinary team assessment to a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program. The independent variables were: sex, age, born outside Sweden, education, pain severity as well as the hospital, anxiety and depression scale (HADS). Results: Low-educated women were less often selected to multidisciplinary rehabilitation programs than high-educated women (OR 0.55, CI 0.30-0.98), even after control for age, being born outside Sweden, pain intensity and HADS. No significant findings were found when comparing the results between high-and low-educated men. Conclusion: Our findings can be interpreted as possible discrimination against low-educated women with chronic pain in hospital referrals to pain rehabilitation. There is a need for more gender-theoretical research emphasizing the importance of taking several power dimensions into account when analyzing possible bias in health care.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages 2014. Vol. 9, no 5, article id e97134
National Category
Public Health, Global Health and Social Medicine
Identifiers URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-90849 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097134 ISI: 000336730600022 Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84901317856 OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-90849 DiVA, id: diva2:735073
2014-07-222014-07-012025-02-20 Bibliographically approved