Making more minority scientists.

Objective: To assess the gender related impact of osteoarthritis (OA) on quality of life (QoL) and health service utilization (HSU) of primary care patients in Germany. Methods: Cross sectional study with 1250 OA patients attending 75 primary care practices from March to May 2005. QoL was assessed using the GERMAN-AIMS2-SF. Data about comorbidities, prescriptions, health service utilization, and physical activity were obtained by questioning patients or from the patients' medical files. Depression was assessed by means of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Results: 1021 (81.7%) questionnaires were returned. 347 (34%) patients were male. Impact of OA on QoL was different between gender: women achieved significantly higher scores in the AIMS 2SF dimensions lower body (p < 0.01), symptom (p < 0.01), affect (p < 0.01) and work (p < 0.05). Main predictors of pain and disability were a high score in the "upper body "scale of the AIMS2-SF (beta = 0.280; p < 0.001), a high score in the PHQ-9 (beta = 0.214; p < 0.001), duration of OA (beta = 0.097; p = 0.004), age (beta = 0.090; p = 0.023) and the BMI (beta = 0.069; p = 0.034). Predictors of pain and disability did not differ between gender. 18.8 % of men and 19.7% of women had a concomitant depression. However, no gender differences occurred. Women visited their GP (mean 5.61 contacts in 6 months) more often than men (mean 4.08; p < 0.01); visits to orthopedics did not differ between gender. Conclusion: The extent to which OA impacts men and women differs in primary care patients. This might have resulted in the revealed differences in the pharmacological treatment and the HSU. Further research is needed to confirm our findings and to assess causality. Background Osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases worldwide and is associated with substantial impact on patients' individual quality of life as well as on healthcare costs. Its prevalence is expected to rise significantly in the upcoming decades. Increasing life expectancy and decreasing physical activity, leading to a constant increase in body weight, are regarded as underlying determinants of this development. Facing this situation, the WHO and the United Nations have declared the years 2000 to 2010 Published: 30 June 2007 Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research 2007, 2:12 doi:10.1186/1749-799X-2-12 Received: 7 October 2006 Accepted: 30 June 2007 This article is available from: http://www.josr-online.com/content/2/1/12 © 2007 Rosemann et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.