• Aranka V Ballering, RosmalenJudith G MJGMFrom University of Groningen, University Medical Center of Groningen, Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation (ICPE), Groningen, the Netherlands. P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB, Groningen, the Netherlands (AVB, JGMR), and Tim C Olde Hartman.
• From University of Groningen, University Medical Center of Groningen, Interdisciplinary Center Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation (ICPE), Groningen, the Netherlands. P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB, Groningen, the Netherlands (AVB, JGMR); Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. P.O. Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, the Netherlands (TCOH) a.v.ballering@umcg.nl.
• J Am Board Fam Med. 2022 Jan 1; 35 (1): 738473-84.

BackgroundRecently it was shown that the relative lack of diagnostic interventions conducted in women mediated the negative association between female sex and diagnosed disease. However, it remains unknown whether women and men receive disease diagnoses in an equal frequency after diagnostic interventions have been performed in general practice.MethodsWe used generalized linear mixed-effect models to assess the association between diagnostic interventions and disease diagnoses when patients presented with common somatic symptoms and studied whether the association differed between female and male patients. RESULTS: In 34,268 episodes of care (61.4% female) physical examinations and specialist referrals were associated with more disease diagnoses (OR = 2.32; 95% CI = 2.17-2.49 and OR = 1.38; 95% CI = 1.27-1.49, respectively), whereas laboratory diagnostics were associated with fewer disease diagnoses (OR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.47-0.54). Significant interaction terms showed that women presenting with back pain, tiredness, arm and/or leg symptoms and tingling extremities were provided with fewer disease diagnoses after diagnostic interventions were performed than men. We found no significant interaction term that indicated that men were provided with fewer disease diagnoses after a diagnostic intervention than women. CONCLUSION: Especially when patients present with the mentioned symptoms, general practitioners should be aware that diagnostic interventions yield fewer disease diagnoses in female patients than in men. Yet, performing fewer diagnostic interventions in women with these symptoms will further exacerbate sex differences in disease diagnoses.© Copyright 2022 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

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