Caregivers who work in emergencies tend, according to a study published in December in the European Journal of Emergency Medicine and reviewed by Midi Libre, to take women and black people who present symptoms of acute coronary syndrome less seriously.
The latter is manifested in particular by “a very strong pain in the chest, with a feeling of oppression” and symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, sweating or anxiety, according to the Health Insurance website. It can cause a heart attack.
Vital emergencies more associated with men
For this study, 1,563 emergency physicians, residents or nurses working in emergency departments in France, Belgium, Switzerland or Monaco received a questionnaire.
This included an image of a patient, with a description of his symptoms suggestive of acute coronary syndrome. The participants had to determine the level of urgency of this case, as they usually do in their departments. But not everyone received the same image: their gender and ethnicity differed among the participants.
While all patients had the same description of their symptoms, “respondents estimated that more life-threatening emergencies affected men (62%) than women (49%),” the study notes. “This could be due to a more serious presentation of men who consult in the emergency room or to more frequent clinical vignettes that present men in medical training,” explain its authors.
Black patients less likely to receive emergency treatment
“Compared to white patients, black patients were less likely to receive emergency treatment,” the article added. Respondents more often believed that patients with North African appearance had a life-threatening emergency (61%) than white (58%), Asian (55%), and black (47%) patients. And for black women, double punishment: only 42% of those surveyed see them in a vital emergency.
Among the limitations of this study, the authors point out that the sample is not representative of the general population because “only doctors, residents and nurses motivated to answer the questionnaire are represented.” Furthermore, the images used were generated by artificial intelligence, and although the query carried out was the same, the result showed a different corpulence, a position, a grimace and a different look according to each generated profile, “which could influence the evaluation of the priority and above all the level of pain.
A delay that can be dangerous
This is not the first time discrimination in healthcare has been highlighted. A study published in May 2022 in the medical journal Jama found, for example, that women were “more likely” to experience delays in triage (which involves determining which cases are the most urgent) after severe trauma than men. men. A case marked France in 2017: that of Naomi Musenga, who died of an abdominal stroke after being treated with contempt by a Samu operator.
This type of reaction is not without consequences: “when we evaluate that a case is less serious, we diagnose it later,” warns Libération Xavier Bobbia, head of emergencies at the University Hospital of Montpellier and co-author of the study. “Caregivers must realize that they live in a society that makes them have prejudices. We should not deny them,” he believes.
Source: BFM TV
