Abstract
This study explores health care professionals’ experience-based representations of the psychosocial implications of suffering a stroke. Seven female health care professionals working within in-patient stroke rehabilitation participated in individual semi-structured interviews. The resulting transcriptions were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, from which five main themes, with 12 sub-themes, were derived: shame, stigma, misperceptions, loss and fears. The emergent themes suggest that suffering a stroke is assumed by health care professionals to result in farreaching negative psycho-social consequences for stroke survivors. The implications of this study’s findings are discussed and future research suggested.