Arja Lehti

Central gender theoretical concepts in health research: the state of the art

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of gender perspectives in health science, there is conceptual confusion regarding the meaning and the use of central gender theoretical concepts. We argue that it is essential to clarify how central concepts are used within gender theory and how to apply them to health research. We identify six gender theoretical concepts as central and interlinked—but problematic and ambiguous in health science: sex, gender, intersectionality, embodiment, gender equity and gender equality. Our recommendations are that: the concepts sex and gender can benefit from a gender relational theoretical approach (ie, a focus on social processes and structures) but with additional attention to the interrelations between sex and gender; intersectionality should go beyond additive analyses to study complex intersections between the major factors which potentially influence health and ensure that gendered power relations and social context are included; we need to be aware of the various meanings given to embodiment, which achieve an integration of gender and health and attend to different levels of analyses to varying degrees; and appreciate that gender equality concerns absence of discrimination between women and men while gender equity focuses on womens and mens health needs, whether similar or different. We conclude that there is a constant need to justify and clarify our use of these concepts in order to advance gender theoretical development. Our analysis is an invitation for dialogue but also a call to make more effective use of the knowledge base which has already developed among gender theorists in health sciences in the manner proposed in this paper.

Gaps Between Patients, Media, and Academic Medicine in Discourses on Gender and Depression: A Metasynthesis:

For reasons that are not yet fully understood, depression affects women twice as often as men. In this article we describe an investigation of how depression is understood in relation to men and women by the patients themselves, the media, and the medical research establishment. We do this by undertaking a metasynthesis of data from three different sources: interviews with depressed patients, media portrayals of depressed individuals in Sweden, and international medical articles about depression. The findings reveal that there are differences in (a) the recognition of depression, (b) the understanding of the reasons for depression, and (c) the contextualization of depression. Although women and men describe different symptoms and reasons for falling ill, these gendered expressions are not acknowledged in articles coming from Western medical settings. We discuss the implications of these findings and conclude that an integrated model for understanding biological, gender, and cultural aspects of depression has yet to be developed.

Gender-related explanatory models of depression : a critical evaluation of medical articles

OBJECTIVES Although research has consistently shown a higher prevalence of depression among women compared with men, there is a lack of consensus regarding explanatory factors for these gender-related differences. The aim of this paper was to analyse the scientific quality of different gender-related explanatory models of depression in the medical database PubMed. STUDY DESIGN Qualitative and quantitative analyses of PubMed articles. METHODS In a database search in PubMed for 2002, 82 articles on gender and depression were selected and analysed with qualitative and quantitative content analyses. In total, 10 explanatory factors and four explanatory models were found. The ISI Web of Science database was searched in order to obtain the citation number and journal impact factor for each article. RESULTS The most commonly used gender-related explanatory model for depression was the biomedical model (especially gonadal hormones), followed by the sociocultural and psychological models. Compared with the other models, the biomedical model scored highest on bibliometric measures but lowest on measures of multifactorial dimensions and differences within the group of men/women. CONCLUSION The biomedical model for explaining gender-related aspects of depression had the highest quality when bibliometric methods were used. However, the sociocultural and psychological models had higher quality than the biomedical model when multifactoriality and intersectionality were analysed. There is a need for the development of new methods in order to evaluate the scientific quality of research.

IS THERE A GENDER bIAS IN RECOMMENDATIONS fOR fURTHER REHAbIlITATION IN pRIMARy CARE Of pATIENTS wITH CHRONIC pAIN AfTER AN INTERDISCIplINARy TEAM ASSESSMENT

OBJECTIVE To examine potential gender bias in recommendations of further examination and rehabilitation in primary care for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain after an interdisciplinary team assessment. METHODS The population consisted of consecutive patients (n = 589 women, 262 men) referred during a 3-year period from primary healthcare for assessment by interdisciplinary teams at a pain specialist rehabilitation clinic. Patient data were collected from the Swedish Quality Registry for Pain Rehabilitation. The outcome was defined as the examination or rehabilitation that was specified in the patients record. RESULTS Men had a significantly higher likelihood than women of being recommended physiotherapy and radiological examination, and the gender difference was not explained by confounding variables and covariates (age, marital status, ethnicity, education, working status, pain severity, pain interference, pain sites, anxiety and depression). There was no significant gender difference in recommendations to treatment by specialist physician, occupational therapist, psychologist or social worker. CONCLUSION Our findings indicate that the interdisciplinary teams in specialist healthcare may discriminate against women with chronic pain when physiotherapy and radiological investigation are recommended. The teams choice of recommendations might be influenced by gendered attitudes, but this field of research needs to be studied further.

Low-educated women with chronic pain were less often selected to multidisciplinary rehabilitation programs.

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.

The Western gaze : An analysis of medical research publications concerning the expressions of depression, focusing on ethnicity and gender

Our aim of this study was to explore how authors of medical articles wrote about different symptoms and expressions of depression in men and women from various ethnic groups as well as to analyze the meaning of gender and ethnicity for expressions of depression. A database search was carried out using PubMed. Thirty articles were identified and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Approaches differ with regard to how depression is described and interpreted in different cultures in relation to illness complaints, illness meaning, and diagnosis of depression. Articles often present issues based on a Western point of view. This may lead to “cultural or gender gaps,” which we refer to as “the Western gaze,” which may in turn influence the diagnosis of depression.

Developing a Tool for Increasing the Awareness about Gendered and Intersectional Processes in the Clinical Assessment of Patients--A Study of Pain Rehabilitation.

Objective There is a need for tools addressing gender inequality in the everyday clinical work in health care. The aim of our paper was to develop a tool for increasing the awareness of gendered and intersectional processes in clinical assessment of patients, based on a study of pain rehabilitation. Methods In the overarching project named “Equal care in rehabilitation” we used multiple methods (both quantitative and qualitative) in five sub studies. With a novel approach we used Grounded Theory in order to synthesize the results from our sub studies, in order to develop the gender equality tool. The gender equality tool described and developed in this article is thus based on results from sub studies about the processes of assessment and selection of patients in pain rehabilitation. Inspired by some questions in earlier tools, we posed open ended questions and inductively searched for findings and concepts relating to gendered and social selection processes in pain rehabilitation, in each of our sub studies. Through this process, the actual gender equality tool was developed as 15 questions about the process of assessing and selecting patients to pain rehabilitation. As a more comprehensive way of understanding the tool, we performed a final step of the GT analyses. Here we synthesized the results of the tool into a comprehensive model with two dimensions in relation to several possible discrimination axes. Results The process of assessing and selecting patients was visualized as a funnel, a top down process governed by gendered attitudes, rules and structures. We found that the clinicians judged inner and outer characteristics and status of patients in a gendered and intersectional way in the process of clinical decision-making which thus can be regarded as (potentially) biased with regard to gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity and age. Implications The clinical implications of our tool are that the tool can be included in the systematic routine of clinical assessment of patients for both awareness raising and as a base for avoiding gender bias in clinical decision-making. The tool could also be used in team education for health professionals as an instrument for critical reflection on gender bias. Conclusions Thus, tools for clinical assessment can be developed from empirical studies in various clinical settings. However, such a micro-level approach must be understood from a broader societal perspective including gender relations on both the macro- and the meso-level.

Experiences of Well-Being Among Sami and Roma Women in a Swedish Context

Our aim was to explore the experiences of well-being and lack of well-being among middle-aged and older women belonging to two national minority groups in Sweden. Interviews from nine older Sami women and four middle-aged Roma women were analyzed using grounded theory with the following categories identified: contributing to well-being (with the subcategories belonging to a healthy family, being spiritual, cultural norms as health promoting, and having had a life of ones own); and contributing to lack of well-being (with the subcategories living subordinate to the dominant society, living in a hierarchical family, and living in the shadow of tuberculosis.)

Experiences and explanations of mental ill health in a group of devout Christians from the ethnic majority population in secular Sweden: a qualitative study

Objective To explore existential meaning-making in an ethnic-majority subgroup with mental ill health and to increase knowledge about the importance of gaining access to such information in mental healthcare. Design Qualitative study using in-depth interviews and systematic text condensation analysis. Participants 17 devote Christians with an ethnic-Swedish background, 12 women and 5 men, 30–73 years old, from different congregations across Sweden, having sought medical care for mental ill health of any kind. Setting The secular Swedish society. Results A living, although asymmetric, relationship with God often was seen as the most important relationship, giving hope and support when ill, but creating feelings of abandonment and fear if perceived as threatened. Symptoms were interpreted through an existential framework influenced by their view of God. A perceived judging God increased feelings of guilt, sinfulness and shame. A perceived merciful God soothed symptoms and promoted recovery. Existential consequences, such as being unable to pray or participate in congregational rituals, caused feelings of ‘spiritual homelessness’. Participants gave biopsychosocial explanations of their mental ill health, consonant with and sometimes painfully conflicting with existential explanations, such as being attacked by demons. Three different patterns of interaction among biopsychosocial and existential dimensions in their explanatory systems of illness causation were identified: (a) comprehensive thinking and consensus; (b) division and parallel functions and (c) division and competitive functions. Conclusions Prevailing medical models for understanding mental ill health do not include the individuals existential experiences, which are important for identifying risk and protective factors as well as possible resources for recovery. The various expressions of existential meaning-making identified in this devout religious subgroup illustrate that existential information cannot be generalised, even within a small, seemingly homogenous group. The three identified patterns of interactions formed a typology that may be of use in clinical settings.

Access to rehabilitation : patient perceptions of inequalities in access to specialty pain rehabilitation from a gender and intersectional perspective

Background Long-term musculoskeletal pain is common, particularly among women. Pain conditions are a concern in primary health care, and people with severe and complex pain are referred to specialty health care. There is gender bias in access, counselling, assessment, and treatment of long-term pain. Objective This study explores patient accounts and perceptions about important (social) factors for accessing specialised pain rehabilitation from gender and intersectional equality perspectives. We aimed to identify potential biases and inequalities in accessing rehabilitation resources at a specialised rehabilitation clinic. Design Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 adults after an assessment or completion of a specialised rehabilitation programme in northern Sweden. Qualitative content analysis was used to explore patients’ perceptions of important factors for accessing rehabilitation. Results One main theme was formulated as Access to rehab – not a given. Three categories of perceived inequality were demonstrated: power of gender, power of social status, and power of diagnosis. Participants perceived rehabilitation as a resource that is not equally available, but dependent on factors such as gender, socio-economic status, ability to work, ethnicity, or age, and more subtle aspects of social status and habitus (e.g. appearance, fitness, and weight). The character of diagnosis received (medical versus psychiatric or social) was also noted. Conclusions It is crucial that professionals are aware of how potential inequalities related to gender, social status, and diagnosis, and their intersections, can be created, perceived, and have influence on the processes of assessment and treatment. Reduction of social determinants of health and biases remain important within global, national, and local contexts.