PORTH Ann-Kristin

Previous University and Subject: Technical University Munich / Human Medicine

Thesis since: 03/2021

Sex- and Gender-based Differences in Diabetes Care Experience and Gendersensitive
Approaches to Diabetes Care

My thesis will entail several projects that will contribute to exploring ways of providing personcentred and gender-sensitive care for people living with diabetes mellitus. Sex- and gender-based medicine aims to elucidate where differences between the genders are clinically meaningful. It therefore fits into the concept of person-centred health care, which focuses on outcomes that matter to the people affected. These include patient-reported outcomes and experiences.

Gender can be seen as social sex, in contrast to biological sex. The latter is usually defined by genitals, gonads, chromosomes, and hormones whereas gender is a psycho-sociocultural construct that encompasses identities, expectations, roles, and behaviours. Whether and to what extent gender affects the experience of health and medical care and what clinical implications this might entail, especially for supporting people with chronic diseases, will be the mutual topic of my projects.

I want to investigate sex- and gender-specific differences of patient-reported outcomes and experiences (PROs and PREs) among different groups of people living with diabetes. Furthermore, I want to explore which gender-related factors, such as socioeconomic status, might mediate discrepancies between the genders. Based on my findings, I will try to derive implications for future clinical practice. I also want to infer potential consequences for the education of future health care professionals and researchers. For this, I will contextualize my findings to a review that will summarize how the concepts sex and gender are currently reflected in diabetes research. In this context, I will also propose a more precise terminology for this field.

Methods and Skills:

Qualitative interviews; delphi study; clinical studies