Gender Preferences for Providers of Health and Counseling Services

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A study of gender preferences for providers of health, counseling, and academic services examined the relationship of gender preference to the gender of client or potential client and the nature of the service sought. Participants in the study represented 64% of a randomly selected sample of undergraduates at a private coeducational university. These participants, totaling 1,095, included 545 women and 550 men. Results of the study suggest that gender preferences do exist among women and men for providers of some health and counseling services. Preferences are typically for same-gender individuals. Women more often than men think it important to have a choice of a male or female provider and women more frequently than men tend to prefer a same-gender provider for a given service and for more of the services considered. The study suggests that gender preference is related to the nature of the service. Preference for a same-gender provider is stronger for all respondents in those services that seem to be associated with intimacy and physical interaction (gynecologist, primary physician, personal counselor, freshman counselor) while same-gender preference is weak or nonexistent in the more academic services (professor, academic advisor, teaching assistant, director of undergraduate studies). Results of this study are interpreted in terms of developmental tasks of adolescence and rapidly changing social factors.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: