Shame and Medicine Project, 2021-2024

The Shame and Medicine Project explored the role and experience of shame in contemporary healthcare through three workstreams. Workstream 1: The clinical encounter investigated shame experiences in clinical settings with a focus on patients' experiences. Workstream 2: The medical workplace investigated shame experiences among doctors in the context of their workplace. Workstream 3: Medical education explored when and why medical students feel shame in the context of medical education, and the influence these experiences have on their developing sense of professional identity. In each workstream, a diary-interview method was employed to explore participants' experiences of shame and other self-conscious emotions in medical settings. Participants were asked to complete a series of structured Emotional Experience Diary entries detailing self-conscious emotional experiences. Patients were asked to write up to two diary entries, reflecting the most recent self-conscious experience in relation to their medical care and the most intense experience. Doctors were asked to complete a diary entry relating to a self-conscious emotional experience they had that day once a day for 2 weeks (a total of ten entries) and students were asked to complete one diary entry on a self-conscious emotional experience every month for a year (up to twelve entries). Following this, participants were invited to attend a semi-structured interview to discuss the experiences described in their diary entries in greater detail. Most interviews lasted between 45 minutes and 60 minutes. In addition, we interviewed doctors who had experience of the GMC disciplinary process, focused on their self-conscious emotional experience through this process.

This data includes diary entries and interview transcripts from the diaries from, and interviews with, the patients, doctors, and students. These data are in folders that contain Microsoft Word files and include the following:

95 patients (134 diary entries and 20 semi-structured interviews). This folder is 2.63MB. Inside the folder are 95 sub folders, which correspond to each patient. Each subfolder contains the data that the patients have agreed to be made available on the UK Data Service. These are either or both a MS Word document with the diary entries and a MS Word document with the interview transcript.

51 doctors (312 diary entries and 41 semi-structured interviews). This folder is 3.54MB. Inside the folder are 51 sub folders, which correspond to each doctor. Each subfolder contains the data that the doctors have agreed to be made available on the UK Data Service. These are either or both a MS Word document with the diary entries and a MS Word document with the interview transcript.

58 medical students (331 diary entries and 20 semi-structured interviews). This folder is 2.70MB. Inside the folder are 58 sub folders, which correspond to each student. Each subfolder contains the data that the students have agreed to be made available on the UK Data Service. These are either or both a MS Word document with the diary entries and a MS Word document with the interview transcript.

The Data Collection is available for download to users registered with the UK Data Service. All requests are subject to the permission of the data owner or his/her nominee. Please email the contact person for this data collection to request permission to access the data, explaining your reason for wanting access to the data, then contact our Access Helpdesk.