Participatory arts are increasingly recognised as a valuable and accessible mechanism for giving a voice to the experiences of individuals' health and healthcare. In recent years, there has been a move towards embedding participatory arts-based models into public engagement processes. Here, we contribute to the existing literature on the use of participatory arts-based approaches and their role in health research and healthcare practise, focusing on two interlinked approaches, the creation of personas and storytelling. We draw on two recent projects which have utilised these approaches to inform subsequent healthcare research and as a professional training tool to improve patient experience in a healthcare setting. We add to emerging literature to outline the benefits of these approaches in supporting research and training in healthcare settings, with a focus towards the co-produced foundations of these approaches. We demonstrate how such approaches can be utilised to capture different forms of voices, experiences and perspectives to help inform healthcare research and training, rooted in the lived experience of individuals who are directly involved in the creative process of developing personas via storytelling. These approaches challenge the listener to "walk in someone else's shoes", using their own homes and lives as a theatrical set in which to envisage someone else's story, involving the listener in the creative process through (re)imagining the stories and experiences of the characters. Greater use of immersive, co-produced participatory art-based approaches should be used in PPIE to inform research and training in healthcare settings as a means of centring those with lived experience through co-production. Involving those with lived experience, particularly from groups who are traditionally excluded from research, via a process which is based on co-creation and co-production, reorientates the researcher-participant dynamic to fully centre those involved in the research at the heart of the tools used to guide health and healthcare research. In this way, it may also aid in trust and relationship building between institutions and communities in a way which is focused around positive, creative methods to aid health research and healthcare processes. Such approaches may help to break down barriers between academic institutions, healthcare sites and communities.
Keywords: Co-production; Lived experience; Marginalised communities; Participatory arts; Theatre.
This article describes how storytelling and the creation of personas, as two forms of participatory arts-based approaches, may be used to inform health research and healthcare practise, including training of healthcare professionals. We draw on two recent projects which have been created with members of diverse local communities, detailing how creative methods can be used in this way. This model of creating art with communities and people with lived experience of health conditions enables ownership of these processes and encourages participants and users to ‘take a walk in someone else’s shoes’. We suggest that using such approaches helps to further break down barriers between academic institutions, healthcare sites and communities and may boost trust between different stakeholders. Greater use of immersive, co-created participatory arts-based approaches can be used to inform research and training in healthcare settings as a means of centring those with lived experience through co-production. Involving those with lived experience, particularly from groups who are traditionally excluded from research, helps to shift power dynamics, and, in this way, may aid in trust and relationship building between institutions and communities in a way that encourages empathy generated from creative methods to aid health research and healthcare processes.
© 2023. The Author(s).