Gender Differences among Healthcare Providers in the Promotion of Patient-, Person- and Family-Centered Care—And Its Implications for Providing Quality Healthcare

Abstract

The concept of “patient-centered care” (PCC) emphasizes patients’ autonomy and is commonly promoted as a good healthcare practice that all of medicine should strive for. Here, we assessed how six medical specialties—pediatrics, OBGYN, orthopedics, radiology, dermatology, and neurosurgery—have engaged with PCC and its derivative concepts of “person-centered care” (PeCC) and “family-centered care” (FCC) as a function of the number of female physicians in each field. To achieve this, we conducted a scoping review of three databases—PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo—to assess the extent that PCC, PeCC, FCC, and RCC were referenced by different specialties in the medical literature. Reference to PCC and PeCC in the literature correlates significantly with the number of female physicians in each field (all p p > 0.5). Pediatrics shows the most extensive reference to PCC, followed by OBGYN, with a significant difference between all disciplines (p S, which supports PCC/PeCC/FCC approaches to healthcare.

Keywords

• patient-centered care
• family-centered care
• person-centered care
• relationship-centered care
• cognition
• empathizing–systemizing theory