• To identify how gender can influence people’s experience of healthcare and their health outcomes
• To consider strategies you could use in your practice to promote person-centred care for women
• To understand the importance of recognising unconscious bias and developing cultural humility
Socially constructed gender norms influence people’s access to, and experience of, healthcare. Gender norms can negatively affect the health of women, men and people with other gender identities, such as transgender or non-binary individuals. Person-centred care and shared decision-making, which are widely recognised as essential aspects of healthcare, could be effective approaches for enhancing gender equality in healthcare for women. However, many women appear to receive suboptimal person-centred care. Additionally, there is a lack of representation of diverse gender identities in research, as well as a lack of awareness of diverse gender identities among nurses and other healthcare professionals. To enhance gender equality in healthcare for women, nurses and nursing students should be encouraged to reflect on their unconscious biases and adopt a stance of cultural curiosity, while organisations need to improve preregistration and post-registration training on equality and diversity.
Nursing Standard. doi: 10.7748/ns.2024.e12221
Peer reviewThis article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software
Correspondence Conflict of interestNone declared
Moss J, Roberts S (2024) Enhancing gender equality for women using person-centred care and cultural curiosity. Nursing Standard. doi: 10.7748/ns.2024.e12221
Published online: 29 January 2024
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