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Gender awareness in medicine, sexism and empathy. A comparison between professionals and general practitioners in training
Journal Title: PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE 
Author/s:  Silvia Gattino, Norma De Piccoli, Mariasusetta Grosso, Simonetta Miozzo, Gabriella Tanturri 
Year:  2019 Issue: 3 Language: Italian 
Pages:  21 Pg. 7-27 FullText PDF:  284 KB
DOI:  10.3280/PDS2019-003002
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In the last decades in medicine, there has been a growing attention to gender differences that has led to a greater awareness by the health staff of the importance of a gender-oriented approach. Nevertheless, prejudices and gender inequalities persist which influence the diagno-sis, treatment and management of patients. This paper investigated the level of gender aware-ness in 349 active or still-training general practitioners exercising in Piedmont. Through re-gression models, the relationship between three gender awareness dimensions in the medical-clinical field (1. gender sensitivity, 2. adherence to gender stereotypes towards patients and 3. adherence to gender stereotypes related to medical women and men), and sexism and empathy towards patients has been analysed. The results have shown that being a general practitioner in training is associated with a greater gender sensitivity and a lower tendency to adhere to gen-der stereotypes towards patients. Greater empathy i.e. willingness to pay attention to the emo-tional aspects of patients is also associated with greater attention to the gender dimension. In addition, sexism resulted a significant predictor of adherence to gender stereotypes towards both patients and medical men/women. The study underlines the need of an effort in training in order to prepare professionals who can grasp the specificities of individuals, helping to pro-vide appropriate care for all and ensuring equal health assistance for women and men.
Keywords: Gender medicine, sexism, gender awareness, empathy, general practitioners.

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Silvia Gattino, Norma De Piccoli, Mariasusetta Grosso, Simonetta Miozzo, Gabriella Tanturri, Gender awareness in medicine, sexism and empathy. A comparison between professionals and general practitioners in training in "PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE" 3/2019, pp. 7-27, DOI:10.3280/PDS2019-003002

   

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