Women are disproportionately affected by autoimmune diseases, which are conditions in which the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy cells and tissues in the body. Yet a new study has found that they are significantly more likely than men to face prolonged diagnostic journeys, with almost a third of women surveyed waiting four years or more for a diagnosis.
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While almost half of men receive a diagnosis within a year of symptom onset, most women face longer delays, with 60.4% waiting more than a year for a correct diagnosis.
Such “marked” differences suggest that “historical gender bias remains a challenging aspect of the diagnostic journey,” said study co-author Shaista Tayabali, with possible reasons including historical bias, limited research on women’s health, and gender-biased data feeding into machine learning models.
Women account for 70-80% of cases of autoimmune diseases worldwide, with the most common conditions being type 1 diabetes, autoimmune thyroid disease, systemic lupus and multiple sclerosis.
Although women suffer more from autoimmune diseases than men, their diagnosis takes longer.
“Although labels such as hysteria are outdated and, fortunately, rarely used these days, as women we often still find it more difficult to make our symptoms believe and therefore treat them accurately,” Tayabali said.
The study analyzed more than 6,000 patients with a wide range of autoimmune diseases. Participants were asked how long it took to receive a diagnosis from the onset of symptoms, how many health visits they had, and what diagnoses they received before their autoimmune diagnosis.
Symptoms considered psychological
Doctors often consider symptoms such as fatigue, pain, sleep disturbances or low mood as psychosomatic or psychiatric without first considering autoimmune diseases, which can lead to longer waiting times, untreated conditions and loss of confidence in the healthcare system.
“Clinicians need to be open-minded,” said David D’Cruz, consultant rheumatologist at Guy’s Hospital in London, calling on them to “ask whether there is an underlying autoimmune disease that has not yet been recognized – and to listen to patients”.
One reason for the long wait times is that women were more likely than men to have their symptoms misdiagnosed as psychosomatic, meaning doctors believe symptoms are caused or worsened by psychological factors. This was reported by 34% of women compared to 22% of men.
The researchers also found that women were almost 50% more likely to report receiving a psychiatric misdiagnosis and almost 75% more likely to report a psychosomatic misdiagnosis than men.
“This is not to say that a psychiatric diagnosis is never correct,” D’Cruz added. “People can suffer from both autoimmune and psychiatric diseases, and there is growing recognition that psychiatric symptoms can be part of an autoimmune disease, particularly in diseases like lupus that can directly affect the brain. »
Gn Health
