The Use of Arts-Based Methods to Enhance Patient Engagement in Health Research

Patient and care partner engagement in research (PER) is important in generating knowledge to improve healthcare. Arts-based methods (ABM) use art in the research process to share aesthetic knowledge, which is knowledge that may be too complex to share only verbally. Together, PER and ABM are potentially synergistic, as both are participatory, problem-focused, dialogic, and collaborative; yet little is known of the utility of ABM for PER.

A narrative review was performed to identify, collate, and summarize the ways ABM has been used with PER and share the impacts of ABM on PER. The databases CINAHL, Scopus, and PubMed were searched, and 15 articles were included.

A wide variety of ABM were used for PER, with some studies using multiple ABMs. The use of ABM for PER was reported to be decolonizing, shifted power from researchers to people with lived experience, and reduced tokenism. People with lived experience shared their knowledge directly through their art, deepening the understanding of their emotions, feelings, and relationships.

Researchers should consider the benefits of the participatory nature of ABM and explore how to engage people with lived experience in their work beyond data collection. Researchers engaging people with lived experience should consider using ABM as a way to operationalize PER to elicit aesthetic knowledge and strengthen power equalization.

No patients or members of the public contributed to this review due to a lack of funding to support their meaningful involvement.