Does Gender Matter? A Vignette Study of General Practitioners’ Management Skills in Handling Patients with Alcohol-Related ProblemsAlcohol and Alcoholism 2009 44(6):620-625;
The aims of this study were to analyse the perceptions of female and male primary care physicians (PCPs) of alcohol problems in male and female patients, their recommendations to reduce or abstain from alcohol, their referrals to treatment and their views of safe levels of drinking for male and female patients. These factors were related to the physicians’ own alcohol consumption.
Male patients were less likely to be advised to stop drinking altogether than female patients and were less likely to be referred, according to this vignette study. Taking into account that male patients have a higher prevalence of alcohol problems, this may be of considerable importance for men's health outcomes. Implications of these findings are the need to increase awareness of male excessive drinking and that gendered perceptions might bias alcohol management recommendations.
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