From: NurseZone.com, March, 2004

Research is now beginning to show how gender differences can play a role in one’s health.

According to Joan Shaver, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, “I think we’re just beginning to understand and study the connection between the stress, the immune and the reproductive systems. It’s becoming clearer that there are connections between those systems that have to do with who we are as people and how we interact with our environment.” She believes that researches need to study all the possibilities for gender differences that come up.

For example, women often report more symptoms for a given condition, but it’s unclear if that is because they are more willing than men to report said symptoms, because they are more aware of what’s happening in their bodies or for some other reason.

Bruce Wilson, RN, Ph.D., states that the subject isn’t taken seriously enough. According to Wilson, it is a problem that “nursing does not recognize men’s health” since nurses make up the majority of health care providers. Nurses should, “recognize [men] have health problems, that [men] die substantially younger.”

Statistics highlight some of the differences: 38 percent of women and 25 percent of men will die within a year of a first recognized heart attack, according to the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease. Women are also twice as likely as men to die after bypass surgery.

But there are other, subtle differences. With Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), there can be a delay in diagnosis of the disease in women because it was once thought to be prevalent only in men.

Adds Shaver, “I think to be a competent and reflective clinician, it pays to think through and be sensitive to patterns of communication with male versus female patients. We can only give good care if we really understand how to help a person be able to engage in really good self-care.”