Aims of the study

Often, people report feeling dismissed or not believed by healthcare professionals, particularly when conditions are poorly understood or stigmatised. Developing a new scale may help researchers to better understand medical dismissal, and to improve training for healthcare professionals, and the quality of healthcare services.

Study type

Online survey

Who is able to participate?

We are recruiting participants aged 18 years or older, who are based in the UK, who have a diagnosis of a long-term condition (e.g., CKD, asthma, diabetes, heart disease, IBS, depression) or have experienced a persistent symptom for a period of 6 months, who have used or tried to use healthcare services at least 5 times in the past two years for any kind of health issue.

Where is the study happening?

This is a remote study consisting of 4 online questionnaire - baseline, 1 week, 3 months and 6 months.

Open and close dates of recruitment

19th May 2026 - 31st August 2026

How do I get involved?

If you are interested in taking part, sign up through the study link:

Or email [email protected] for more information.

Summary

Many people have both positive and negative experiences when accessing healthcare. Often, people report feeling dismissed or not believed by healthcare professionals, particularly when conditions are poorly understood or stigmatised.

We want to learn more about what makes these experiences feel positive or negative, how they affect people emotionally and physically, and what could improve them in the future.

In this study, we want to create and test a new scale to measure the medical dismissal. Developing a new scale may help researchers to better understand medical dismissal, and to improve training for healthcare professionals, and the quality of healthcare services.

Taking part in this research will involve completing online surveys at four time points over a six-month period (at the start, after one week, after three months, and after six months).

Has this study received ethical approval

[email protected]; HR-24/25-53098

Lead investigators

Dr Natasha Seaton, Dr Sula Windgassen