Department of Medical Sciences, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Uppsala University, Dag Hammarskjölds Väg, 60 751 85, Uppsala, Sweden.
Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
BMC Med Educ. 2020 Dec 10;20(1):503. doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-02422-9.
Gender discrimination (GD) and sexual harassment (SH) occur at all academic institutions worldwide. Medical students report high prevalence of GD and SH, which may negatively affect their education and health. There are indications that policies and reforms on reducing GD/SH are insufficient. Swedish medical students' experiences of GD/SH are monitored by course-evaluations and bi-annual student union evaluations; however, the response rate is usually low. The aim of this study was to compare the exposure to and context of self-reported GD/SH over an 11-year period amongst medical students at a Swedish university.
In 2002, a questionnaire (n = 622) was mailed to medical students' home addresses. It was repeated in 2013 and then distributed during mandatory lectures (n = 856). The questions used a behavioristic approach and asked about specific GH/SH experiences. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. The changes in prevalence over time were calculated by sampling weights in order to obtain comparable estimates, representative of both cohorts.
The response frequency was 55% (62% women) in 2002 and 81% (59% women) in 2013. The prevalence of GD tended to decrease for male and clinical students in comparison to female and pre-clinical peers. However, the prevalence of SH increased for female compared to male students. The ratio of SH for female pre-clinical students doubled in many instances; most often, the mistreatment occurred in the clinic. Medical doctors were indicated as perpetrators up to five times more often by all students in 2013.
Our results show a disproportional change in exposure to GD/SH between female and male medical students, resulting in a widening of the gender gap regarding prevalence of GD and SH between 2002 and 2013. In particular, personal experiences of SH increased for both sexes. It is proof that institutional efforts to fight mistreatment might be ineffective.
性别歧视（GD）和性骚扰（SH）在全球所有学术机构中都存在。医学生报告 GD 和 SH 的发生率很高，这可能会对他们的教育和健康产生负面影响。有迹象表明，减少 GD/SH 的政策和改革措施还不够。瑞典医学生的 GD/SH 经历通过课程评估和两年一次的学生会评估来监测；然而，回应率通常很低。本研究的目的是比较瑞典一所大学的医学生在 11 年间自我报告的 GD/SH 的暴露程度和背景。
2002 年，向医学生的家庭住址邮寄了一份问卷（n=622）。2013 年重复了一次，然后在必修讲座期间分发（n=856）。这些问题采用行为主义方法，询问了具体的 GH/SH 经历。参与是自愿和匿名的。为了获得可比的估计值，以代表两个队列，通过抽样权重计算了随时间变化的患病率变化。
2002 年的回应率为 55%（女性占 62%），2013 年为 81%（女性占 59%）。与女性和临床学生相比，男性和临床学生的 GD 患病率呈下降趋势。然而，与男性学生相比，女性学生的 SH 患病率增加。在许多情况下，女性预科生的 SH 发生率增加了一倍；最常见的虐待发生在诊所。2013 年，所有学生都表示医生是肇事者的可能性增加了五倍以上。
我们的结果显示，医学生中 GD/SH 的暴露程度存在性别差异，导致 2002 年至 2013 年间 GD 和 SH 的患病率性别差距扩大。特别是，两性的个人 SH 经历都有所增加。这证明了打击虐待的机构努力可能无效。
