TB Stigma in the UK: Patients Experiences and Everyday Responses

Starting soon

Conditions studied: TB, Tuberculosis, Stigma, TB Stigma, Low Incidence

In brief

Public understanding of tuberculosis (TB) is shaped by sociocultural norms, educational background, and personal experiences. Misconceptions about TB transmission, disease severity, and treatment side effects are widespread, contributing to stigma and fear of social rejection. Such stigma can lead individuals to conceal their diagnosis, limiting access to support, engagement with healthcare, and overall health literacy. TB-related stigma is recognised as a significant barrier to ending the global TB epidemic, affecting quality of life and access to care. Yet in high-income, low-incidence (HILI) countries like the UK, its prevalence, influence, and lived impact remain largely unexplored. Where stigma appears in research, it is often treated as an emerging theme, leaving a critical gap in understanding how individuals with TB, or those caring or supporting them, experience and respond to it. This study adopts a Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) approach to examine TB-related stigma in depth. CGT allows the research to explore how people living with TB make sense of, interpret, negotiate, and resist stigma, capturing the dynamic and contextual ways it shapes their lives, identities, and interactions with healthcare systems. By investigating these meaning-making processes, the study aims to illuminate how stigma operates in the UK, providing insights to inform future stigma-reduction interventions, communication strategies, and supportive healthcare practices, ultimately benefiting patients, communities, and the NHS.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT07609264

Run by

Bournemouth University

People needed

20

Starts

2026-09-01

Expected to finish

2028-03-01

Last updated by the study team

2026-05-27

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Aged 18 or over at start of study
• Resident in rural or coastal areas within South or Southwest England
• Diagnosed with either active or latent TB within the last 10 years

You may not qualify if…

• Lacks mental capacity or is unwilling to consent to participate in the study
• Under 18 years of age
• Lives in an area of TB high-incidence (above 10 cases/100,000 population) or outside of rural and coastal areas of South/Southwest England

Where it is running

• University Hospitals Dorset — Bournemouth, Dorset, United Kingdom

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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