Carrying a double burden: The impact of pain and gender-related stigma in women with chronic pelvic pain

Jenna M. Wilson, Savannah Kazemipour, Diya Dharmendran, Samantha M. McKetchnie, Mayumi Sawada, Michaela Sawada, Emily J. Bartley, Samantha M. Meints
In: The Journal of Pain · 2026 · vol. 42 , pp. 106251 · doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2026.106251 · PMID:41763345 · W7131656150
article OA: closed CC0
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by gemini-2.5-flash-lite, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This study investigated how pain and gender-related stigma interact to impact women experiencing chronic pelvic pain.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Women with chronic pelvic pain (CPP) often experience stigma related to both their gender identity and chronic pain status, as symptoms are frequently dismissed, disbelieved, or attributed to psychological causes, negatively affecting care. This study examined how chronic pain and gender-related stigma intersect in cisgender women with CPP and their associations with pain and psychosocial factors. Participants completed an online survey with validated questionnaires assessing stigma, pain severity and interference, physical functioning, and psychosocial factors. Pain stigma was correlated with greater pain severity and interference, poorer physical functioning, higher depression and perceived injustice, and lower pain self-efficacy, self-esteem, and social support, even after controlling for gender-related stigma. In contrast, gender-related stigma was correlated with lower social support, but also with lower pain and better physical functioning when controlling for pain stigma. A composite variable representing intersectional stigma categorized participants into four groups: high pain/high gender stigma, low pain/high gender stigma, high pain/low gender stigma, and low pain/low gender stigma. Analyses of covariance examined intersectional group differences in pain and psychosocial factors. Women high in both pain and gender-related stigma reported the most adverse profile across pain and psychological factors, highlighting the compounded challenges of confronting both forms of stigma. Women high in gender-related stigma, regardless of pain stigma, reported the lowest social support, suggesting that gender-related stigma may be especially linked to social factors. These findings underscore the need for stigma-reduction initiatives for chronic pain, with attention to the unique challenges faced by women experiencing both pain and gender-related stigma. PERSPECTIVE: Using an intersectional framework, this study examined associations of pain- and gender-related stigma with pain and psychosocial factors in cisgender women with chronic pelvic pain. Women reporting high levels of both stigmas exhibited the most adverse pain and psychological profiles, highlighting the compounded challenges of confronting multiple, intersecting stigmas.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

chronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (54)

SciLite annotations

organisms 2
noordeloos 2009062 noordeloos 2009062

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
scilite
last seen: 2026-06-28T09:31:30.222730+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-09-29T06:34:56.587159+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK