An observational study in Critical Illness, Gender Equality and Discrimination, Sex, sponsored by Karolinska Institutet. Recruiting at 1 site in Sweden. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-20.
Sponsored by Karolinska Institutet · Observational
The dominating proportion of patients in the ICU are men. Studies indicate that men receive more mechanical ventilation, vasoactive drugs, renal replacement therapy, invasive monitoring and have longer length of stay in the ICU. These differences do not unambiguously translate into a survival benefit for men; if survival would be altered if women were admitted to ICU in the same extent is unknown.
Factors affecting ICU admission include age, co-morbidities, physiological parameters (indicating severity of the acute illness) and, additionally, the number of available ICU beds. Factors that should not affect ICU admission include patient gender or ethnicity.
This study aims at studying if bias against women and people of certain ethnicities exist. Do clinicians have differing thresholds for ICU admission due to non-medical reasons?
The investigators propose testing this hypothesis using a blinded randomized factorial survey study.
Background Differing treatment of men and women in several fields of health care is receiving growing attention. This includes care of the critically ill, as awareness of intensive care has dramatically increased during the last years. Critically ill patients are treated in Intensive Care Units (ICU), one of the most expensive and advanced types of care. It is therefore essential that resources are adequately used so that the patient most in need is selected for intensive care, but also that no patient in need is left without.
The dominating proportion of patients in the ICU are men. Studies indicate that men receive more mechanical ventilation, vasoactive drugs, renal replacement therapy, invasive monitoring and have longer length of stay in the ICU. It has also been shown that women and men with severe sepsis receive differential care in the emergency department. These differences do not unambiguously translate into a survival benefit for men; studies show conflicting results. One could only speculate if survival figures would be altered if women were admitted to ICU in the same extent. Sex is a biological variable that affects the immune system and changes throughout life. It is proposed that sex hormones have an impact on how the severity of an illness progresses, where female sex hormones are suggested to have a protective effect. This could partly explain male dominance in the ICU. There is no clear evidence that care given in the ICU should be tailored after the sex of the patient. Then again, there is no clear evidence that the medical care should not be tailored after the sex of the patient. Differing care provided to men and women is therefore controversial. If differences exist, it must be ruled out that it is caused by gender bias, unintentional or not.
As discussed in a recently published Guidance on Reporting of Race and Ethnicity in Medical and Science Journals, Ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological meaning. However, studies including ethnicity may be useful to improve understanding and knowledge of disparities and inequities in health care. Three decades ago, US Department of Health and Human Services published a report on Black and minority health, highlighting ethnic differences. (S Department of Health and Human Services. Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Black and Minority Health. 1985. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-8602912-mvset). Whilst recent studies show reductions in racial and ethnic differences in self-reported health status and health care access and affordability, variances persist. During the COVID-19 pandemic it has become apparent that differences in progression to severe disease exist. In a cohort study using the OpenSAFELY platform in England, including more than 17 million adults, some minority ethnic populations had increased risk of severe COVID-19 as compared with the White population, also after taking other factors of importance into account.
Specific aims When admitting patients to our ICUs, do clinicians discriminate against certain ethnicities? Are thresholds for admitting men lower than for women? The investigators hypothesize that differing ICU admission thresholds exist, due to non-medical reasons.
Method The investigators propose testing this hypothesis using a blinded randomized factorial survey study.
This survey will consist of multiple iterations of eight separate cases, describing a patient in the ward or in the emergency room that may need ICU admission. Co-morbid data, age, physiological parameters will be described followed by a YES/NO: would you admit this patient to your ICU, considering a "normal" ICU situation in your hospital. A count-down timer for each case will ensure that the YES/NO response comes quickly, and whilst a paper case can never mimic a real clinical situation, making fast decisions is a part of how intensivists work.
The factors affecting ICU admission are usually considered to be age, co-morbidities, physiological parameters (indicating severity of the acute illness) and, additionally, the number of available ICU beds. Factors that should not affect ICU admission include patient gender or ethnicity.
In order to test if gender and/or ethnicity affects ICU admission the survey will be randomized in several ways. Essentially, multiple different versions of the survey will exist. We will tweak the age and number of co-morbid conditions described. It is likely, but not certain, that higher patient age and more co-morbid conditions will be associated will lower admission rates. The same association is expected during a theoretical pandemic situation, with strained resources.
Unbeknown to the respondents, the cases will be randomized to describe a man or a woman. Thus, the cases can be in the order of Male, Female, M, F or reversed: F,M,F,M and so on. In one of the eight cases, the name of the patient will be a non-typical national name.
To make this generalizable and overall successful, the investigators think it is paramount to have the survey translated to French, German, Spanish and to make it simple to answer. Preferably the survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Moreover, sending emails, through the national organizations, might improve generalizability. Using a survey link, for instance via twitter, could create a selection bias in who chooses to click on such a link.
(This research group has done this before, so it can be done. Luckily for this project, it is not a widely cited study. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-50836-3 )
47 studies on the registry are indexed under Racism; 8 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 5,000 is above the median of 243 across 12 observational studies indexed under Racism.
Browse Racism studies →Karolinska Institutet is the lead sponsor of 1,148 studies on the registry; 276 are open to participants now.
Compared within Racism, this study's primary condition as ClinicalTrials.gg classifies it; the registry's first condition term is Critical Illness. The counts are of registry records indexed under each term, refreshed daily. How we classify →
Intensive care physicians and other physicians working with admission (or non-admission) of critically ill patients across the world are eligible to participate in the study.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
We will include intensive care physicians, both in training and specialists as responders in this randomized survey study
Exclusion Criteria:
We will exclude "button-mashers", i.e. participating respondents that toggle through the case descriptions faster than they possibly could read the case description. A case answered \<20 seconds will be ruled out.
The case descriptions will include factors like age, co-morbid status and acute physiological parameters; but the factor of sex/gender will be randomized. Moreover, randomization to case description of typical vs non-typical national name will be done.
Ratio of ICU admission men vs women
Exact same case descriptions except for the fact that the sex/gender is randomized
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Ratio of ICU admission ethnic background
Exact same case descriptions except for the fact that the name/ethnic background is randomized
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Time to ICU admission men vs women
Do respondents take longer to decide to admit women compared to men?
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Time to ICU admission ethnic background
Do respondents take longer to decide to admit descriptions of patients with "other" ethnic background compared to "normal" ethnic background?
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Time-out sex/gender
Do respondents more often run out of time in thinking about admitting women compared to men?
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Time-out described ethnicity
Do respondents more often run out of time in thinking about admitting descriptions of patients with "other" ethnic background compared to "normal" ethnic background?
Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year
Plan to share: No — The IPD consists of respondent country, respondent sex (M/F/other), size of hospital (university vs non-university hospital), specialist/in training, respondent age group in brackets of 10. It is paramount that the physicians responding to this survey know that we will not collect precise individual data, nor share the block data we do collect.
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