Why the study?
Does female sex increase the reported incidence of postoperative complications compared to male sex in surgical patients?
Does female sex increase the reported incidence of postoperative complications compared to male sex in surgical patients?
Women report significantly higher rates of minor postoperative complications such as nausea, sore throat, headache, and backache compared to men.
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Observed higher complication reporting in women should not change practice; hypothesis-generating for sex-specific perioperative risks.
We compared the incidence of postoperative complications in women (vs. men) in 4173 patients. Overall, women were almost twice as likely to report any postoperative complication (RR = 1.92, p < 0.0005). Specifically, they were 2.6 times more likely to report nausea and vomiting (p < 0.0005), 1.5 times more likely to report score throat (p = 0.0001), 2.3 times more likely to report headache (p < 0.0005) and 2.4 times more likely to report backache (p = 0.0036). Whether these gender differences are due to a reporting bias, or whether in fact women are at greater risk of such complications, remains to be determined.
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Myles et al. (1997) studied this question.
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