Women Feel More Pain than Men

By SiliconIndia | Thursday, February 2, 2012

Bangalore: A latest study published in the "Journal of Pain" reports that "Women report more intense pain than men in virtually every disease category." Researchers analyzed the electronic medical records of 11,000 men and women who were patients at the Stanford Hospital and clinics, each of them was asked to assign a "pain score" ranging from 0 (no pain) to 11(worst pain imaginable) to their level of discomfort at the time of their doctor's visit. The study included patients suffering from 47 different disorders and 250 different diagnoses, ranging from cancer to infectious diseases.

The pain scores for women, on an average were 20 percent higher than men and this is the result reported for nearly every disorder. According to the study, senior author Dr. Atul Butte, said, "It's still not clear that why women feel more pain than men do but they are certainly reporting more pain." The reasons put forth for this observation was; it is the hormones which are responsible for the gender gap. Some other explanations also suggest that men may be compelled by cultural stereotypes to appear tough about pain, and so they report less feeling than actual.

The views of Roger B. Fillingim, a Pain Researcher at the University Of Florida College Of Dentistry suggests that women assign different numbers to the level of pain they perceive compared to men and the factors contributing to these perceptions of pain level, include hormones, genetics and psychological factors, which may vary between men and women.

Whatever may be the reason the study is believed to be incomplete and future research is required to find out the exact causes of pain perception differences, and which would be best to target for more effective pain control.