EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01HRS GMT FRIDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 2006
Affluent patients are more attractive to GPs
Affluent patients are perceived as more attractive than patients from deprived backgrounds and this could be one reason why they receive better treatment from their GPs, according to new research published in the Royal Society of Medicine’s Journal of Health Services Research & Policy.
Dr Dermot O’Reilly, one of the study’s authors, said although equity is one of the central tenets of the NHS, evidence suggests otherwise.
“GPs find patients from disadvantaged backgrounds to be less attractive,”said Dr O’Reilly.
“Our question is whether these perceptions affect the treatment disadvantaged patients receive. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that it does.”
The researchers1 took photos of 300 patients from affluent and disadvantaged patients from 15 GP surgeries in Northern Ireland. Three photos2 of each patient’s face were then examined by 30 GPs from practices other than those used by the patients. GPs were not told any information about any of the patients.
Based on the images alone, GPs rated younger patients more attractive than older patients; and patients from higher socio-economic backgrounds were assessed as being more attractive than their less affluent peers.
“The average difference in measures of attractiveness between affluent and deprived patients was the equivalent of 30 years; that is, the difference between someone aged 30 and someone aged 60,”said Dr O’Reilly.
“Significantly, these differences were more pronounced when the GP came from a practice serving a predominately deprived population.”
Dr O’Reilly said existing research already showed deprived patients were disadvantaged in the health care system.
“We know that patients from lower socioeconomic groups tend to have shorter consultations, receive less information, are less likely to get a prescription or to be referred to specialist care than the more affluent,”he said.
“While it is unfortunate that we judge people on their appearance, the psychology literature shows that humans are conditioned to do so. Our study has found that this also occurs during the patient/doctor encounter. GPs and health workers should be aware of this potential bias and try to offset it in the way they interact with their patients to ensure that deprived patients are not inadvertently further disadvantaged.”
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1 The Queen’s University of Belfast
2 Smiling face shot, non-smiling face shot and non-smiling portrait
‘Might how you look influence how well you are looked after? A study which demonstrates that GPs perceive socio-economic gradients in attractiveness’ by D O’Reilly, K Steele, C Patterson, P Milson & P Harte is published in the October 2006 (Vol. 11) issue of the Journal of Health Services Research & Policy.
JHSRP is published quarterly by the Royal Society of Medicine. It is edited by Professors Nick Black and Nicholas Mays from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
