An international study on attitudes and opinions regarding female sports medicine physicians during pregnancy and the postpartum period

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Supporting female sports medicine physicians to simultaneously be mothers and pursue professional careers is crucial to maintain gender diversity in sports medicine physicians. The purpose of this study is to understand the attitudes toward female sports medicine physicians during pregnancy and postpartum.

Methods

An anonymous online survey was distributed to sports medicine physicians practicing in 51 different countries. They were asked how comfortable they felt with female sports medicine physicians working on the sidelines of sporting events during pregnancy, if the female sports medicine physicians were as productive as their male counterparts after giving birth, and how satisfied they were with the percentage of female sports medicine physicians in their country. Data were analyzed using the chi-square test, and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify independent variables.

Results

In total, 1193 physicians (380 [31.9%] female) were included for analysis. Physicians in Asia were the least comfortable with pregnant sports medicine physicians working on the sidelines and those in North America were the most comfortable (odds ratio = 0.28 and 2.51, 95% confidence interval 0.18–0.44 and 1.55–4.06, respectively). More experienced sports medicine physicians (odds ratio = 1.01, 95% confidence interval 1.00–1.03; p < 0.05) and divorced physicians (odds ratio = 0.33, 95% confidence interval 0.12–0.91; p < 0.05) were less comfortable with pregnant female sports medicine physicians working on sidelines, and those trained in orthopedics were less likely to agree that female sports medicine physicians were equally as productive as male counterparts postpartum (odds ratio = 0.29, 95% confidence interval 0.10–0.88; p < 0.05). Female physicians were less satisfied with the percentage of female sports medicine physicians in their country (odds ratio = 0.41, 95% confidence interval 0.27–0.60; p < 0.01) than their male counterparts.

Conclusions

Female sports medicine physicians may experience bias in their practice during pregnancy and postpartum.

KEYWORDS:

• Sports medicine
• postpartum period
• gender bias
• pregnancy
• sexism

Acknowledgments

We thank all the sports medicine physicians and their organizations that participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by Tobe Maki scholarship foundation (20-JC-006).