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Sex differences in online ratings of healthcare professionals in Moscow: A cross-sectional study
1University Institute for Primary Care (IuMFE), University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Objective:
To compare online ratings between male and female healthcare professionals practicing in Moscow, Russia.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study used a publicly available dataset containing profiles of healthcare professionals practicing in Moscow, Russia, extracted from the Napopravku and DocDoc healthcare platforms; data extraction and analysis were performed in May 2026. Healthcare professionals with missing sex or rating data were excluded. Healthcare professions were grouped into 20 categories. Ratings were compared between men and women using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and adjusted median regression analyses.
Results:
A total of 64,939 healthcare professionals were included, including 23,454 men (36.1%) and 41,485 women (63.9%). Median ratings were identical in men and women (8.6/10), although rating distributions differed significantly (p < 0.01). In adjusted median regression analyses, female healthcare professionals had slightly lower ratings than men after adjustment for professional experience and number of reviews (β = -0.031; p < 0.01). Median ratings were higher among men in 11 of 20 healthcare profession categories, whereas no category showed higher median ratings among women.
Conclusions:
Online ratings of healthcare professionals in Moscow were overall highly positive. Although differences were modest, male healthcare professionals tended to receive slightly more favorable ratings than female healthcare professionals across several healthcare profession categories.
