In a recently published study, researchers examined whether patients’ gender and ethnicity influenced heart attack management decisions in the emergency room. Their findings reveal a tendency to prioritize white men.
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Authors wondered whether early management of heart attacks might be different depending on the gender and ethnicity of the patient. It seems so. Their results were published in the journal European Journal of Emergency Medicine.
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The objective of this study is to find out if the gender or ethnicity of patients influences the decisions of nursing staff in mattermatter care of the person in the case of a suspected heart attack. To do this, health professionals were given a clinical case to evaluate in an emergency department. This was to evaluate the gravitygravity of the case and the need to take care of it very quickly or not. There were 8 different patients, all complaining of heart pain. These people differed in gender (male or female) and ethnicity (white, black, North African, Southeast Asian).
Of 1,563 respondents, the average age was 36 and 55% were women. The results are as follows:
- men were often considered more urgent than women;
- black patients were seen as less urgent than white ones;
- Southeast Asian patients were no less urgent than whites.
The study therefore shows that patient characteristics (ethnicity and gender) influence the decision-making of health professionals in the emergency room. Even more interesting, female health professionals also considered male cases more urgent than female cases!
