PainRelief.com Interview with:
Mika Guzikevits
Doctoral Student
Prof. Choshen-Hillel’s Decision-Making lab
School of Business Administration & Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality 
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Although pain is one of the most common reasons for seeking medical help, providing adequate treatment can be challenging due to its subjective nature. When healthcare providers’ pain management decisions rely on subjective judgment, they are susceptible to biases.

PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Our study, which analyzed over 21,000 patient records from the United States and Israel, found a significant sex bias in pain management at emergency departments. We found that female patients are consistently less likely to receive pain relief prescriptions compared to male patients with similar complaints (around 10% difference). This bias persists across different ages, pain levels, and physician sex, indicating a systemic issue. Female patients’ pain scores are less frequently recorded, and they spend more time in the emergency department than male patients. In a controlled experiment involving 109 nurses, we found that pain was rated as less intense if the patient was said to be female rather than male, which supports our hypothesis that healthcare providers are susceptible to stereotypical beliefs about women’s pain and expect them to act “hysterically” and exaggerate their pain reports.