Association between patient-physician gender concordance and patient experience scores. Is there gender bias?
Am J Emerg Med 2020;
45:476-482. [PMID:
33069544 DOI:
10.1016/j.ajem.2020.09.090]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2020] [Revised: 09/23/2020] [Accepted: 09/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Patient satisfaction, a commonly measured indicator of quality of care and patient experience, is often used in physician performance reviews and promotion decisions. Patient satisfaction surveys may introduce gender-related bias.
OBJECTIVE
Examine the effect of patient and physician gender concordance on patient satisfaction with emergency care.
METHODS
We performed a cross-sectional analysis of electronic health record and Press Ganey patient satisfaction survey data of adult patients discharged from the emergency department (2015-2018). Logistic regression models were used to examine relationships between physician gender, patient gender, and physician-patient gender dyads. Binary outcomes included: perfect care provider score and perfect overall assessment score.
RESULTS
Female patients returned surveys more often (n=7 612; 61.55%) and accounted for more visits (n=232 024; 55.26%). Female patients had lower odds of perfect scores for provider score and overall assessment score (OR: 0.852, 95% CI: 0.790, 0.918; OR: 0.782, 95% CI: 0.723, 0.846). Female physicians had 1.102 (95% CI: 1.001, 1.213) times the odds of receiving a perfect provider score. Physician gender did not influence male patients' odds of reporting a perfect care provider score (95% CI: 0.916, 1.158) whereas female patients treated by female physicians had 1.146 times the odds (95% CI: 1.019, 1.289) of a perfect provider score.
CONCLUSION
Female patients prefer female emergency physicians but were less satisfied with their physician and emergency department visit overall. Over-representation of female patients on patient satisfaction surveys introduces bias. Patient satisfaction surveys should be deemphasized from physician compensation and promotion decisions.
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