Is Patient-Physician Gender Concordance Related to the Quality of Patient Care Experiences?

Abstract

Background: There is great interest in identifying factors that are related to positive patient experiences such as physician communication style. Documented gender-specific physician communication and patient behavior differences raise the question of whether gender concordant relationships (i.e., both the provider and patient share the same gender) might affect patient experiences.

Objective: Assess whether patient experiences are more positive in gender concordant primary care relationships.

Design: Statewide telephone surveys. Linear mixed regression models to estimate the association of CAHPS scores with patient gender and gender concordance.

Subjects: Two probability samples of primary care Medicaid patients in Connecticut in 2017 (5/17-7/17) and 2019 (7/19-10/19).

Main measures: Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CG-CAHPS) survey augmented with questions about aspects of care most salient to PCMH-designated organizations and two questions to assess access to mental health services.

Key results: There were no significant effects of gender concordance and differences in experiences by patient gender were modest.

Conclusions: This study did not support the suggestion that patient and physician gender and gender concordance have an important effect on patient experiences.

Keywords: CAHPS; gender concordance; patient experience.