REF Portfolio Colette Dobson 2021

Led by artist Colette Dobson, ‘Empowering Patients’ uses ComMA (Communication Medicine and Art) principles to investigate means of helping patients articulate their experience of relationship or sexual problems and other difficult emotions by cancer and its treatment. The research examines how non-verbal, textiles communication boosts patient confidence; it especially focuses on how this communication generates equality between patient and practitioner as both attempt to understand what the communication and the situation can mean for them.
Dobson conducted the research in hospital environments, working collaboratively with Dr Josie Butcher (Psychosexual Consultant, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust) (CWP). Artist-led workshops introduced female cancer patients to textile arts. They encouraged these patients to use the textile practice as a means of communicating any issues they struggled to discuss in spoken conversation with healthcare professionals. Patient responses were monitored, and the methodology underwent continual refinement to identify optimal ways of using non-verbal communication in medical settings.
Testimonials and evaluations have proved that the work has changed clinical practice and improved the outcomes for the patients’ sexual wellbeing. The patent focus group members were empowered because the research gave them a way to communicate to healthcare professionals with less risk of embarrassment or anxiety. They were also empowered because they became able to support other patients, cascading the communication practices throughout new groups of patients and practitioners.