Higher risk—less data: A systematic review and meta-analysis on the role of sex and gender in trauma research.

What is it about?

Women develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) two to three times more often than men. However, it is not clear if and how studies looking into what causes PTSD are taking this into account. When systematically summarizing studies that followed people to see who developed PTSD, we found that (a) women were studies less often than men; (b) only a small number of studies described their understanding of sex and/or gender; (c) most studies did not look at whether women and men differed in risk factors for PTSD; (d) sex/gender was not adequately considered in scientific reporting. Furthermore, we for the first time looked into (e) when (i.e. at what time after trauma) the PTSD risk difference between women and men starts to emerge.

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Photo by Kati Hoehl on Unsplash

Photo by Kati Hoehl on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis that looked at how prospective PTSD research considers the risk differences between women and men. We found that although women had higher PTSD prevalence and symptom severity than men, they were less often studied. We furthermore quantified a sex and gender bias across three additional domains (terminology, analyses, and reporting). Through increased consideration of sex and gender aspects we can learn more about why differences between women and men exist and how to help people with PTSD better.