Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: to increase engagement with research and maximize potential impact, researchers need to use different types of dissemination activities to ensure their research reaches, and is useful to, their intended audience. Researchers are increasingly being encouraged to consider approaches such as cartoons, blogs and videos to share research in alternative formats and make findings more accessible to members of the public and evidence users. Graphic methods offer a valuable opportunity to share complex information and concepts with the target audience.
Objectives: to describe and reflect on how the use of graphic methods helped us to engage with key stakeholders and disseminate results during a systematic review of research investigating the experiences of peer support for parents of babies cared for in neonatal units.
Methods: we incorporated several graphic approaches within this project. Firstly, we invited a research colleague and artist to create a cartoon based upon the project’s plain language summary to visualise the systematic review process for members of our Parent Advisory Group (PAG). Secondly, we commissioned a professional artist to visually capture experiences of peer support for parents of babies cared for in neonatal units. The artist attended the two final project meetings, live drawing the discussions as they unfolded.
Results: using these graphic techniques helped us to explore and question our assumptions about effective communication of research. Visual representation of the research process encouraged us to reflect on several key issues.
1) Who is the audience, and what do they look like?
2) What are the most important messages? With reduced space and few words, what do people really want or need to know?
3) What are we trying to convey using these techniques? Is this different from our standard outputs?
Conclusions: using graphic techniques helped the research team to become more conscious of underlying assumptions and to reflect on the process and decisions made about and with our PAG throughout the project. Incorporating these methods into our usual ways of working facilitated the creation of a shared understanding between the research team, PAG and other key stakeholders. This helped us ensure our research was relevant to the needs of our target audience and reflected their experiences, whilst allowing us to communicate our processes and findings. The graphic products also supported people to easily engage with the research across different modalities (such as social media, peer reviewed journal articles, meeting and conference presentations), which has attracted a broader audience than we might otherwise have reached.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: we used comics and illustration to engage and reflect the experiences of patients and other members of the public throughout our project. These techniques provided a valuable format to seek and incorporate their views within our research.
Objectives: to describe and reflect on how the use of graphic methods helped us to engage with key stakeholders and disseminate results during a systematic review of research investigating the experiences of peer support for parents of babies cared for in neonatal units.
Methods: we incorporated several graphic approaches within this project. Firstly, we invited a research colleague and artist to create a cartoon based upon the project’s plain language summary to visualise the systematic review process for members of our Parent Advisory Group (PAG). Secondly, we commissioned a professional artist to visually capture experiences of peer support for parents of babies cared for in neonatal units. The artist attended the two final project meetings, live drawing the discussions as they unfolded.
Results: using these graphic techniques helped us to explore and question our assumptions about effective communication of research. Visual representation of the research process encouraged us to reflect on several key issues.
1) Who is the audience, and what do they look like?
2) What are the most important messages? With reduced space and few words, what do people really want or need to know?
3) What are we trying to convey using these techniques? Is this different from our standard outputs?
Conclusions: using graphic techniques helped the research team to become more conscious of underlying assumptions and to reflect on the process and decisions made about and with our PAG throughout the project. Incorporating these methods into our usual ways of working facilitated the creation of a shared understanding between the research team, PAG and other key stakeholders. This helped us ensure our research was relevant to the needs of our target audience and reflected their experiences, whilst allowing us to communicate our processes and findings. The graphic products also supported people to easily engage with the research across different modalities (such as social media, peer reviewed journal articles, meeting and conference presentations), which has attracted a broader audience than we might otherwise have reached.
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: we used comics and illustration to engage and reflect the experiences of patients and other members of the public throughout our project. These techniques provided a valuable format to seek and incorporate their views within our research.
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