In The Insider, citing the study, it is said that the authors called their work one of the largest attempts to date to harmonize data on the epidemiology of pain. The analysis included people aged from five to more than 100 years old.
According to the researchers’ calculations, women more often complained of more severe pain in all 11 anatomical areas considered: the head, face, neck or shoulder, foot or ankle, hand or wrist, elbow, chest, back, stomach or abdomen, hip, and knee. The largest gender gap was recorded in complaints of pain in the face and abdomen.
Women also more often reported pain with an intensity of 7 points or higher on a ten-point scale and generalized pain, when unpleasant sensations affect several parts of the body at once. The authors note that pain intensified up to age 55 in both men and women, and peak values were recorded at around age 75 and older.
At the same time, the pattern differed by location: headaches, abdominal pain, and facial pain were more often noted at a young age, whereas musculoskeletal pain usually increased with age. Professor Andrew Horne, director of the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, called the study evidence that the gender gap in pain is real, persistent, and global.
In a conversation with the British newspaper The Guardian, Horne said that pain rises especially sharply up to age 55 — during the period of work, childcare, and women’s reproductive years — and that women’s complaints are “too often ignored, under-researched, and undertreated”. The Guardian also writes that concern remains in medicine about differences in prescribing medication and treatment depending on the patient’s sex.
The newspaper reminds readers that a study published in September previously showed that women are less often offered surgical interventions or strong painkillers than men. At the same time, the review found no guidelines recommending different treatment depending on sex.
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