The Patient's Gender Influencing the Accuracy of Diagnosis and Proposed Sepsis Treatment in Constructed Cases

BACKGROUND: Male sex is an independent risk factor for sepsis development. In addition to immunological gender differences, women less often receive sepsis treatment once diagnosed. Gender differences have also been described in other medical conditions, such as acute coronary syndrome. AIM: To study whether the gender of patients influenced physicians' tendency to suspect sepsis and propose correct initial sepsis treatment in constructed cases. METHOD: Four cases were constructed to fulfil the sepsis-3 criteria as well as raise clinical suspicions of other common medical differential diagnoses. Two of the cases were drafted in two versions, only differing in the gender of the patient. The two versions were randomly distributed to all clinical physicians in a medical region in Sweden. The responding physicians were asked to state the three most important diagnoses and the three most important initial treatments for each case. If sepsis were among the stated diagnoses together with fluids and antibiotics, the case was considered as correctly identified and initially treated sepsis. RESULTS: 120 hospital physicians answered the cases. In the case the patient was a female, the respondents correctly identified and treated sepsis significantly more often than if the patient was of the male sex (Case 1: 12/58 vs 2/62, p < 0.01 and Case 2: 25/62 vs 13/58, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: A low proportion of Swedish physicians identified and proposed treatment for sepsis in four constructed cases. In the case the patient strongly mimicked other diagnoses common in the male sex, the male cases were less often correctly identified and treated for sepsis.