Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2025

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
Seeing the person before the numbers: Personas for understanding patients' life stories when using patient-reported
Jae-Yung Kwon1, Melissa Moynihan2, Francis Lau3
1School of Nursing, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada; Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health, Victoria, Canada.
Aims:
While patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are increasingly being integrated into health information technologies, one challenge has been to assist clinicians in understanding how the responses to PROMs relate to patient stories for identifying and addressing the care needs of individual patients. Personas, hypothetical representations of patients, can be used as an innovative strategy to support clinicians' use of PROMs in their practice. These personas embody patients' life stories, making them a valuable tool for understanding the person when using PROMs. The aim of this project focused on cancer-related experiences to develop personas as a knowledge translation strategy to support clinicians' use of PROMs for person-centred cancer care.
Methods:
Eight older adults participated in online workshops (n = 2-3 participants/workshop; 1.5-hour sessions) to co-develop personas that reflected their collective experiences at a particular stage of their cancer journeys. Participants were asked to identify themes that focused on what the personas were thinking and feeling, what influenced how the personas acted, and the personas' overall goals. Participants subsequently completed an emotional well-being PROM from the perspective of the persona. Personas were further refined based on key themes identified during the workshop discussions.
Results:
Four personas representing the cumulative experiences of the workshop participants were developed to help clinicians link PROM responses to patient stories. These personas became the basis of four practice scenarios, which were examples of interactions between a clinician and each persona, to demonstrate the use of PROMs in practice.
Conclusion:
Personas can be used to illustrate patients' life stories and contextualize PROMs data. As a knowledge translation strategy, personas can foster clinician awareness of how responses to PROMs can be used to initiate conversations to better understand patients' unique life situations.
More Related Videos
06:05The Participant-Reported Implementation Update and Score PRIUS: A Novel Method for Capturing Implementation-Related Data Over Time
Published on: February 19, 2021
11:21Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Guidelines for Writing Outcome
Patient outcomes reflect the patient's response to the goal rather than what the nurse aims to achieve. Terminology should be observable and measurable to avoid the reader's interpretation. The desired outcome should be realistic and achievable in the designated care timeframe. Expected outcomes should align with adjunctive therapies. The outcome should enhance care...
Patient-centered Care
Methods of Documentation II: POMR
Data Collection I
Documentation in Long-Term and Home Healthcare Setting
Long-Term Care Facilities
Nursing Evaluation