International study of physicians' opinion on physician-patient sex concordance when treating athletes

Abstract

Background: The effect of physician-patient sex concordance in medicine has been reported in many studies. Whether physicians believe that the sex concordance between physician and athlete influences treatment has not been investigated.

Objective: To determine whether physicians believe that the sex concordance between physician and athlete influences treatment.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Online survey.

Participants: One thousand one hundred ninety-three sports medicine physicians in 51 countries. Participants were sports medicine physicians trained in orthopedics (n = 443 [37.1%]) and nonorthopedics (n = 750 [62.9%]).

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main outcome measures: Participants were asked to decide whether sex of the physician made them better suited to care for athletes of concordant or different sexes along with their personal background.

Results: Orthopedic sports medicine physicians agreed less than nonorthopedic sports medicine physicians regarding the statement "MALE sports medicine physicians are better suited than their female counterparts to care for MALE athletes" (odds ratio [OR] 0.56, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.35-0.91, p = .02), and compared to sports medicine physicians based in Europe, those based in Asia agreed more to this statement (OR 7.91, 95% CI 4.60-13.60, p < .01). In addition, regarding the statement "FEMALE sports medicine physicians are better suited than their male counterparts to care for FEMALE athletes," compared to sports medicine physicians based in Europe, those based in Asia (OR 9.12, 95% CI 5.63-14.79, p < .01) and North America (OR 2.18, 95% CI 1.46-3.25, p < .01) agreed more and orthopedic sports medicine physicians agreed less than nonorthopedic sports medicine physicians (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.39-0.93, p = .02) to this statement.

Conclusions: Sports medicine physicians trained in orthopedics felt sex concordance was less important than physicians trained in other specialties. Asian sports medicine physicians believed sex concordance was more important compared to physicians in other regions.