ArticleSSM. Qualitative research in health2022
Long covid and medical gaslighting: Dismissal, delayed diagnosis, and deferred treatment.
Article in SSM. Qualitative research in health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 156 citations in OpenAlex.
- Between silence and solutions: a global guideline review of long COVID care and services in Australia.BMC health services research · 2026Pooled it
- ME/CFS and the emotional toll of persistent disbelief: from epistemic to affective injustice.Medicine, health care, and philosophy · 2026Article
- Algorithmic gaslighting in healthcare: mechanisms, harms, and epistemic injustice in context.Philosophy, ethics, and humanities in medicine : PEHM · 2026Article
- Women's musculoskeletal health: insights from the 2024 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report on chronic conditions.Journal of bone and mineral research : the official journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research · 2026Review
- What do we know about medical invalidation and related concepts? - A scoping review and thematic analysis about the definitions, measurements, causes, consequences and potential solutions for medical invalidation.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Medical invalidation is associated with structural barriers in postacute immune mediated syndromes based on patient perspectives in Germany.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- "It's Shaking Your Entire Construction as a Human Being": A Qualitative Analysis on Epistemic Injustice and Medical Gaslighting Consequences in Patients Living with Chronic Pain.The Journal of medicine and philosophy · 2026Article
- Young People Navigating the Looping Effects of Long Covid: Exhausting Agency and the 'Ongoing After' of Pandemic.Sociology of health & illness · 2026Article
- Gaslighting in the context of diagnostic safety: A concept analysis.Journal of healthcare risk management : the journal of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management · 2026Article
- Workplace gaslighting in nursing practice: a concept analysis.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Contested illness and communication: Positioning long Covid in online discussion forums.Journal of health psychology · 2026Article
- "That's not my silo": Navigating fragmented long COVID care in the mid-Atlantic United States.SSM. Qualitative research in health · 2026Article
- Barriers to Long COVID Care in the U.S.: An Application of Levesque et al.'s Access Framework.Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy · 2026Article
- Model of care to promote recovery in older people with long COVID: findings from interviews and a co-design workshop.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Correlates of patient interest in rehabilitation psychology services among individuals with long COVID: A cross-sectional analysis.Rehabilitation psychology · 2026Article
- Racial Disparities in Long COVID: Why Black Americans are Likely Underrepresented in Long COVID Estimates.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Review
- Vital yet Fragile: Informal Networks of Support Among Young People Navigating Long Covid.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2026Article
- Long COVID disability burden in US adults.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Medical Gaslighting and its Impact on Vulnerable Populations.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Evaluation of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) Index and a Recent Long COVID Criteria in Korean Long COVID-19 Cohort.Journal of Korean medical science · 2026Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While we know a lot more about Long Covid today, patients who were infected with Covid-19 early on in the pandemic and developed Long Covid had to contend with medical professionals who lacked awareness of the potential for extended complications from Covid-19. Long Covid patients have responded by labeling their contentious interactions with medical professionals, organizations, and the broader medical system as "gaslighting." We argue that the charge of medical gaslighting can be understood as a form of ontological politics. Not only do patients demand that their version of reality be recognized, but they also blame the experts who hold gatekeeping power over their medical care for producing a distorted version of said reality. By analyzing results from an online survey of Long Covid patients active on social media in the United States (n = 334), we find that experiences of contention and their reframing as "gaslighting" were common amongst our respondents. In short answer responses about their experience obtaining medical care for Long Covid, our respondents described encountering medical professionals who dismissed their experience, leading to lengthy diagnostic odysseys and lack of treatment options for Long Covid. Even though we are limited by characteristics of our sample, there is good reason to believe that these experiences and their contentious reframing as medical gaslighting are exacerbated by gender, class, and racial inequalities.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.