Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

Women are at higher risk of being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease as a psychological disease

Women with autoimmune conditions are more likely to get misdiagnoses compared to men and wait longer for treatment.

Women with autoimmune diseases are 74% more likely than men to be diagnosed as having psychosomatic symptoms. In addition, they have to wait longer to receive the correct diagnosis and the right treatment.

To reach these conclusions, a study disseminated an online questionnaire internationally. It was filled with 6,607 people with an autoimmune disease, with the majority of participants being women and residents of the United Kingdom.

“Most men took less than three months to receive the correct diagnosis, while women took between one and two years.”

Forty-three per cent of women reported that the symptoms they suffered were reported to have a psychological origin, while 34 per cent reported that they were psychosomatic, compared with 33 per cent and 22 per cent of men, respectively.

In view of the results, the authors conclude that women are 74% more likely than men to be diagnosed with symptoms of psychosomatic origin and 46% more likely to receive an incorrect diagnosis of a psychological disease.

In addition, in the case of women, more time elapsed between the onset of symptoms and the diagnosis, requiring more health consultations. Most men took less than three months to receive the correct diagnosis, while women took between one and two years.