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Updated: Jun 1, 2026
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Quantifying Pain Location and Intensity with Multimodal Pain Body Diagrams
Published on: July 7, 2023
'Representing' the pain of others
1Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, Gower Street, London, UK. d.padfield@ucl.ac.uk
Health (London, England : 1997)
|May 20, 2011
Summary
Visual pain images can foster better patient-clinician communication. Photographs can enhance dialogue and create shared meaning in healthcare settings, improving the understanding of pain.
Area of Science:
- Medical communication
- Visual arts in healthcare
- Pain management
Background:
- Traditional verbal communication in pain management can be limited.
- Visual aids offer a potential supplementary method for conveying complex experiences like pain.
- The role of visual language in patient-clinician interactions is underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the use of visual images, specifically photographs, as a communication tool for pain.
- To investigate how visual images can facilitate a more collaborative dialogue between patients and clinicians.
- To examine the co-construction of meaning and narrative through visual art in a healthcare context.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of selected photographs from two art projects: Perceptions of Pain and face2face.
- Application of Roland Barthes' semiotic theory (denoted vs. connoted messages) to interpret pain imagery.
- Integration of visual image analysis with audio recordings of patient-clinician interactions.
Main Results:
- Visual images, particularly photographs, can serve as an alternative language to communicate pain.
- Placing pain-related images between patients and clinicians can encourage a more collaborative dialogue.
- Visual images re-invigorate verbal language, and vice versa, creating meaning within a social context.
- The potential for a generic iconography of pain is suggested through image analysis.
Conclusions:
- A curated resource of pain images could be a valuable communication tool for pain clinics.
- Visual communication strategies can enhance patient-clinician relationships and understanding of pain.
- The participatory role of patients, artists, and clinicians in co-creating meaning is crucial for effective communication.
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