The Inclusion of Sex and Gender Perspective in the Clinical Practice Guidelines

e202508045

Authors

  • Ana M. González Ramos Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados (IESA). Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Córdoba. España.
  • Patricia Gavín Benavent Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (IACS). Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA). Zaragoza. España.
  • Soledad Isern de Val Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud (IACS). Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA). Zaragoza. España.

Keywords:

Clinical practice guideline, Sex bias, Gender bias, Evidence-based practice, Women health, Men health, Quality Assurance in Health Care

Abstract

BACKGROUND // The aim of this study was to identify the exclusion and/or types of inclusion of a sex and gender perspective in clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) in order to highlight the lack of this perspective, derived from historically male-centered model of knowledge, which is changing due to the awareness of addressing health differences between people.

METHODS // A systematic search tool for web documents (scraping) was applied to analyze the CPGs catalogue of the National Health System (by GuíaSalud) automatically and free of researcher bias. Scraping was able to search key words and contextualize them within the document. A quantitative and qualitative analysis was carried out on the output databases.

RESULTS // From 21 CPGs reviewed, 11 did not incorporate evidence on differences or similarities between men and women. Those that included some evidence did so in different ways: 2 excluded men, 1 included examples of sex, gender and intersectionality, 3 included sex or gender evidence, 3 used gender marked language, and 1 showed intersectionality without a sex/gender focus in its wording.

CONCLUSIONS // The 10 guidelines with sex and gender inclusion differ in what they consider important to evidence on health variations of the population related to sex, gender and intersectionality. Significantly, the inclusion of sex and gender seems to respond to the fact that the guide poses a relevant research question.

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Published

2025-08-28

How to Cite

1.
González Ramos AM, Gavín Benavent P, Isern de Val S. The Inclusion of Sex and Gender Perspective in the Clinical Practice Guidelines : e202508045. Rev Esp Salud Pública [Internet]. 2025 Aug. 28 [cited 2026 Apr. 1];99(1):10 páginas. Available from: https://ojs.sanidad.gob.es/index.php/resp/article/view/1461