Published in:
01-03-2010 | General Gynecology
Do women seeking care from obstetrician–gynaecologists prefer to see a female or a male doctor?
Published in: Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics | Issue 3/2010
Login to get accessAbstract
Purpose
To examine whether women seeking care from obstetrician–gynaecologists prefer to see a female or a male doctor or have no preference.
Methods
Five hundred consecutive women attending gynaecology and antenatal clinics were asked to complete a survey questionnaire containing 12 items requiring opinion on whether they want to be seen by a female or male obstetrician–gynaecologist or have no preference. It also contained questions regarding their reasons for the stated preference.
Results
Of the consecutive 500 patients that were given the questionnaire, 435 responded (87% response rate). Two hundred and twenty-five patients had no preference, 194 patients preferred female obstetrician–gynaecologist and 16 patients preferred male obstetrician–gynaecologist. The reasons stated by women who preferred to see a female doctor were as follows: religious beliefs—5%, understands problems better—48%, unspecified reasons–6%, issues of personal modesty—41%. All 16 women who preferred to see a male doctor stated the reason as ‘understands problems better’ (100%).
Conclusions
The majority of women expressed no preference to either gender of their obstetrician and gynaecologists, but significant proportion of the remainder would prefer to see a female doctor when given the choice. Although women gave a variety of subjective reasons for this, demographically it appears that women who are less educated with lower income and being non-white are more likely to prefer to see a female doctor.