Do women 'over-report' morbidity? Men's and women's responses to structured prompting on a standard question on long standing illness
Do women 'over-report' morbidity? Men's and women's responses to structured prompting on a standard question on long standing illness
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DOI：
10.1016/s0277-9536(98)00292-5
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发表时间：
1999-01-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Hunt, K
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Macintyre, S;Ford, G;Hunt, K
在当代工业化社会中，人们经常观察到，尽管女性的寿命比男性长，但她们比男性病情更重，因为她们报告的发病率、残疾率和医疗保健使用率更高。女性发病率较高的一个常见原因是，对症状的感知、评估和反应方式存在性别差异。人们普遍认为，女性会更愿意报告疾病和寻求帮助，并且她们在生活中具有更大的灵活性来适应疾病。少数研究对具有相同状况或症状的男性和女性进行了检查，这些研究是相互矛盾的，但几乎没有支持这种假设的更大倾向，但它仍然被广泛相信。在这里，我们比较了男性和女性对有关慢性病的全球常用问题和一系列更具体的提示的回答，并根据外部定义的严重程度分类和国际疾病分类章节对报告的病症进行分类。我们发现，与女性发病率更高、更愿意报告心理健康问题的普遍预期相反，我们发现： 初次报告病情时没有性别差异；在回答最初的全球问题时，男性报告了自己的状况的比例较高；并且没有证据表明女性更有可能在回答最初的问题时报告“琐碎”或心理健康状况。 (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. 保留所有权利。
It is frequently observed in contemporary industrialised societies that although women live longer than men, they are sicker than men in that they report higher rates of morbidity, disability and health care use. One common element of the explanation for women's higher rates of morbidity is that there are gender differences in the way that symptoms are perceived, evaluated and acted upon. It is widely assumed that women will be more ready to report illness and to seek help and that they have greater flexibility in their lives to accommodate illness. The few studies that have examined men and women with the same conditions or symptoms are contradictory, but lend little support to this hypothesised greater propensity, yet it is still widely believed. Here we compare men's and women's answers to a global, commonly used question about chronic illness and to a series of more specific prompts and classify the conditions reported by an externally defined categorisation of severity and International Classification of Disease chapter. Contrary to the common expectation that women report higher rates of morbidity and are more ready to report mental health problems, we found: no gender differences in the initial reporting of conditions; men reported a higher proportion of their conditions in response to the initial global question; and no evidence that women were more likely to report 'trivial' or mental health conditions in response to the initial question. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.