Biomedical Research

Considerable evidence suggests that men and women experience pain differently, and gender – related influences on pain responses have recently received a great deal of sci-entific and clinical attention. Epidemiologic and survey research typically have demon-strated greater frequencies of pain related symptoms among women than men in the general population. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to estimate pain sensi-tivity using visual analogue pain scale (VAS) following intramuscular injections among adult men and women. This comparative study had total 300 subjects – 140 men and 160 women. Subjects included both men and women in the age group 15 to 45 years. The study was conducted at Victoria Hospital, Bangalore Medical College and Research Centre, Bangalore, Karnataka, India. All subjects received multivitamin intramuscular injections (3 ml) in the gluteal region using 23G needle and subjective pain was assessed using VAS scale. All the data was statistically analysed. Moderately significant higher pain scores was associated with women (1.94 ± 1.10) as compared to men (1.74 ± 1.24) (p = 0.060). Recent studies have shown moderate difference in pain perception between men and women, with women reporting an increased sensitivity to pain and these gender differences appear greatest in middle age. Our study conducted in a sample of south In-dian population has revealed similar results.

Author(s): Kusumadevi MS, Dayananda G, Shivakumar Veeraiah, Elizabeth J, Kumudavathi MS
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