Trust and gender in patient-practitioner relationships
type: CreativeWork
description: This research investigates the phenomenon of patient trust in primary health care providers. Using the qualitative methodology of Memory Work, this research draws largely on social constructionism to understand gendered 'lived' experiences of trust within the patient-practitioner relationship. The central question of this research, then, was: How do male and female patients describe and perceive their experience, both positive and negative, of trust in primary health care practitioners (PHCPs)? Following the Memory Work method, two groups of participants, one comprising four men, the other five women, independently wrote detailed narratives of their lived experiences of trust. These experiences were evoked by agreed 'trigger' topics that each group felt explored and represented trust within the patient-practitioner relationship. The participants then came together as a group to discuss and analyse the individual narratives for the 'common' sense or the social aspects of the experiences common to the group, and the processes used to make sense of them. Both the women's research group and the men's research group met for five sessions, each session lasting at least three hours. Between them the research participants wrote 43 individual narratives (two absences) and generated more than 30 hours of recorded group work. From their written descriptions and verbal discussions of their individual narratives, this research describes and explains the trust that these participants experienced, and explores the meaning that these men and women themselves ascribe to trust in various health care service contexts. Specifically, Memory Work facilitated the participants' own understanding of how their individual experiences of trust have been constructed by the self, and the social processes of gender on self. This research worked at two levels of analysis and interpretation (textual and crosssectional), examining the experiences both within and between the men and women in the stud…
abstract: This research investigates the phenomenon of patient trust in primary health care providers. Using the qualitative methodology of Memory Work, this research draws largely on social constructionism to understand gendered 'lived' experiences of trust within the patient-practitioner relationship. The central question of this research, then, was: How do male and female patients describe and perceive their experience, both positive and negative, of trust in primary health care practitioners (PHCPs)? Following the Memory Work method, two groups of participants, one comprising four men, the other five women, independently wrote detailed narratives of their lived experiences of trust. These experiences were evoked by agreed 'trigger' topics that each group felt explored and represented trust within the patient-practitioner relationship. The participants then came together as a group to discuss and analyse the individual narratives for the 'common' sense or the social aspects of the experiences common to the group, and the processes used to make sense of them. Both the women's research group and the men's research group met for five sessions, each session lasting at least three hours. Between them the research participants wrote 43 individual narratives (two absences) and generated more than 30 hours of recorded group work. From their written descriptions and verbal discussions of their individual narratives, this research describes and explains the trust that these participants experienced, and explores the meaning that these men and women themselves ascribe to trust in various health care service contexts. Specifically, Memory Work facilitated the participants' own understanding of how their individual experiences of trust have been constructed by the self, and the social processes of gender on self. This research worked at two levels of analysis and interpretation (textual and crosssectional), examining the experiences both within and between the men and women in the stud…
author: FitzPatrick, Mary
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/76cd10e2-8f84-4982-8f5b-b7553f6fe1e4/download
date published: 2004
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:49Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Waikato