The social life of wounds: understanding (de)personalisation in wound care

Galazka, Anna Milena ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4376-1980 2026. The social life of wounds: understanding (de)personalisation in wound care. Qualitative Health Research 10.1177/10497323261498123

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Abstract

This study explores how chronic wounds may come to acquire their own social life as actors within the clinical care encounter and what effects the (de)personalisation of wounds may have on patients’ care trajectories. Drawing on ethnographic data from specialist outpatient wound healing clinics in the United Kingdom and selected extracts from interviews with wound care clinicians, this study distinguishes three (de)personalisation practices through which wounds become separated from the patient’s self and acquire social significance as actors within the care encounters: anthropomorphising, objectifying, and alienating wounds. Drawing on critical realism as an analytic orientation, the study then explains the ways in which wound (de)personalisation influences communication, clinical decision-making, and emotional work through material, relational, emotional, cultural, and organisational mechanisms that shape care trajectories within a healthcare context characterised by chronicity and scarcity.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	1049-7323
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	11 November 2026
Last Modified:	11 Nov 2026 12:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/190861

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