Women might not be the alleged weaker sex after all.
Men feel more pain than women while recovering from a major surgery, a new study suggests.
Over 10,000 patients, part of the study, revealed that while women feel more pain after minor procedures, men experience more pain after major surgery, Press Trust of India reported.
Gender seems to play a strong part in pain experienced after surgery, according to the research.
"The influence of gender and sexes is a key issue of today's research in medicine. However, current literature in the field of perioperative medicine rarely focuses on this question," said Dr. Andreas Sandner Kiesling, from the Medical University of Graz, Austria.
"Our aim was to analyze a large population to find differences in postoperative pain perception in females and males," said Sandner Kiesling.
Based on a purpose-designed questionnaire, patients were interviewed 24 hours after their operation. Details such as surgery, anesthesia, the patient's well-being and postoperative pain were recorded as part of the questions.
"The study took more than four years and 10,200 patients were interviewed (42 percent male, 58 percent female)," PTI reported. "When analyzing data for influences of sexes on postoperative pain overall, the researchers found no significant differences."
"However, after arranging data according to the different kind of surgeries, sexes showed significantly different results."
While women were 34 percent more likely to report higher pain ratings after minor procedures, such as diagnostic procedures and biopsies, men were 27 percent more likely to experience a greater number of moderate pain episodes after major vascular and orthopedic surgery.
"Based on our findings it can be presumed that the type (and severity) of surgery may play a pivotal role, as females express higher pain scores after minor procedures, whereas males are more affected after major surgery," the authors concluded.
The research was presented at the Euro-anesthesia meeting in Stockholm, according to PTI.
