October 14, 2026, 7:22 am | Read time: 2 minutes
When women visit the doctor with illnesses, pain, exhaustion, or other physical complaints, they apparently hear a phrase like “It’s probably stress” much more often than men do. A new study suggests that doctors still often do not take women’s symptoms seriously enough.
Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and East Anglia surveyed more than 6,600 people with autoimmune diseases.1 The result: 33.9 percent of women reported that their physical complaints were initially classified as psychosomatic. For men, this figure was 21.5 percent. Psychiatric misdiagnoses were also documented significantly more often in women with illnesses.
What Are Autoimmune Diseases?
In autoimmune diseases, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissue. These include conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, or rheumatoid arthritis. Symptoms are often nonspecific and range from severe fatigue to joint and muscle pain to skin changes. It is not uncommon for years to pass before affected individuals receive a correct diagnosis.
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Old Patterns of Thought May Still Persist
The study’s authors suspect that historical biases in medicine may play a role. Women are still sometimes perceived as more emotional or less reliable observers of their own complaints. “These findings highlight that psychological or mental health explanations can be given too early,” says study author Dr. Melanie Sloan from the University of Cambridge. This could make women particularly susceptible to misdiagnoses.
Shaista Tayabali, co-author of the study and herself a patient with an autoimmune disease, also sees this as a structural problem: Although terms like “hysteria” have long disappeared from modern medicine, women still often have more difficulty being taken seriously with their symptoms.
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Why the Results Don’t Explain Everything
The researchers also emphasize the limitations of their study. The data is based on the experiences and statements of the respondents. It cannot be definitively concluded from this whether biases were actually the cause of the misdiagnoses.
Experts also warn against fundamentally questioning psychological diagnoses. People can suffer from both autoimmune diseases and psychological stress. Additionally, anxiety, depression, or exhaustion can be understandable consequences of severe chronic illnesses.
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Nevertheless, the study highlights a problem that many female patients describe: Until they receive the correct diagnosis, they often feel unheard. Or, as many affected individuals put it according to the researchers: “I wasn’t believed.”