Health-related shame: an affective determinant of health?

“…Clinicians reported that when a patient felt stigmatized or showed a lack of knowledge about HCV, the clinician was more likely to prescribe DAAs. This finding is in contrast to the majority of results assessing infectious disease stigma that indicate that stigma may lead patients to fail to seek treatment ( Dolezal and Lyons, 2017 ). The discrepancy in findings may be because the clinicians in the present study were considering patients who had already connected to care rather than patients who had failed to seek care.…”

“…Internal shame score was found to significantly affect the centrality of the words concerning the social representation of nightlife, showing greater subject's insecurity to move away from the social norms describing human activities of entertainment of that kind. These findings support the notion that shame should be considered as a determinant of health [46]. The link between extensive alcohol consumption and hostility has been well documented in the literature [47,48], while analogous results also indicate the relation of hostility with eating disorders [49].…”

“…That higher levels of body-related shame relate to lower self-rated health is consistent with theoretical tenets 2,13,22 as well as with empirical evidence of elevated cortisol 23 and symptoms of mental illness. 25 Our findings also align with associations noted between higher levels of body pride and both fewer symptoms of mental illness and higher reported levels of wellbeing.…”

“…25 Our findings also align with associations noted between higher levels of body pride and both fewer symptoms of mental illness and higher reported levels of wellbeing. 24,33 While associations between global self-conscious emotions and indicators of health have been observed in past studies, 22,25 our findings highlight the importance of assessing these emotions contextualized to the body and its appearance. Given the emphasis Western society places on appearance, and the pressure to uphold the strict standards both men and women are subject to with respect to weight, 11 as well as evidence that the appearance domain of one's identity strongly predicts global self-worth, 44 it is not surprising that how people feel about their body has a robust impact on their global perceptions of health.…”