CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 92Sexual function and dysfunction studiesObesity and Health PracticesSex and Gender in Healthcare

Perceived stereotyping and seeking care for chronic vulvar pain

Open access
Nguyen, Ruby H. N., Turner, Rachael M., Rydell, Sarah A., MacLehose, Richard F., Harlow, Bernard L.·2013·Pain Medicine
DOI 10.1111/pme.12151PMC PMC4036065
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: We examined stereotyping of chronic pain sufferers among women aged 18-40 years and determined whether perceived stereotyping affects seeking care for women with chronic vulvar pain. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study using a community-based survey of vulvodynia asking if "Doctors think that people with chronic pain exaggerate their pain," and if "People believe that vulvar pain is used as an excuse to avoid having sex". SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Twelve thousand eight hundred thirty-four women aged 18-40 years in metropolitan Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. OUTCOME MEASURES: Women were considered to have a history of chronic vulvar pain if they reported vulvar burning lasting more than 3 months or vulvar pain on contact. RESULTS: Four thousand nine hundred eighty-seven (38.9%) women reported a chronic pain condition; 1,651 had chronic vulvar pain. Women experiencing chronic pain were more likely than those without to perceive stereotyping from both doctors and others; a dose-response with the number of pain conditions existed. Women with chronic vulvar pain were more likely to believe that people think vulvar pain is an excuse to avoid intercourse. Half of the women with chronic vulvar pain did not seek medical care for it; of these, 40.4% perceived stereotyping from doctors. However, it was women who actually sought care (45.1%) who were more likely to feel stigmatized by doctors (adjusted relative risk = 1.11, 95% confidence interval: 1.01-1.23). CONCLUSIONS: Perceived negative stereotyping among chronic pain sufferers is common, particularly negative perceptions about physicians. In fact, chronic vulvar pain sufferers who felt stigmatized were more likely to have sought care than those who did not feel stigmatized.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/pme.12151

Cites

37 of 37 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Approximately 40% of women with vulvodynia refrain altogether from seeking help.

    “Approximately 40 % of women with vulvodynia refrain altogether from seeking help, in many cases because of stigma associated with the conditions [7, 19, 20]”

    From A feasibility trial of online Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for women with provoked vestibulodynia (2023) · cites this paper as [20]

    The Results report that 50.1% of women with chronic vulvar pain sought care, so about half—not approximately 40%—did not. More importantly, the Discussion says the data do not indicate that fear of physician stereotyping kept women from seeking care; perceived stereotyping was higher among women who sought care. The paper therefore contradicts the sentence’s suggested stigma explanation. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The substantial stigma associated with vulvar pain may explain why MSP women, despite having access to care, were less likely to seek treatment.

    “This may emphasize the substantial stigma associated with vulvar pain given that these women choose to seek care for other medical problems,9 but apparently do not convey to their healthcare providers the presence of vulvar pain.”

    From Prevalence of symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of vulvodynia: population-based estimates from 2 geographic regions (2014) · cites this paper as [9]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Nguyen, R. H. N., Turner, R. M., Rydell, S. A., MacLehose, R. F., & Harlow, B. L.
Affiliations
University of Minnesota (US)
Corresponding author
Nguyen, Ruby H. N.
ORCID
Venue
Pain Medicine
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2013-10
Volume
14
Issue
10
Pages
1461-1467
ISSN
  • 1526-2375 (ISSN-L)
  • 1526-4637
DOI
10.1111/pme.12151
PMC
PMC4036065
OpenAlex
W2151650241
Cited by
92
References
36
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 1
FWCI
3.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Pain Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
NIH/NICHD (R01-HD058608)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Sexual function and dysfunction studies
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Obesity and Health Practices
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Sex and Gender in Healthcare
Keywords
chronic vulvar pain, vulvodynia, help-seeking, chronic pain, women's health, sexual avoidance
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Stereotyping, Young Adult, Vulvodynia, Chronic Pain

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review