Article Text
Abstract
The Portraits of Care study used portraiture to investigate ideas about care and care giving at the intersection of art and medicine. The study employed mixed methods involving both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. All aspects of the study were approved by the Institutional Review Board. The study included 26 patient and 20 caregiver subjects. Patient subjects were drawn from across the lifespan and included healthy and ill patients. Caregiver subjects included professional and familial caregivers. All subjects gave their informed consent for the study and the subsequent exhibition of artwork. The artist drew or painted 100 portraits during the 2-year study. A multi-disciplinary analysis team carried out the initial analysis of portraits and subject data. Findings from their qualitative analysis were used to develop a quantitative survey and qualitative journal tool that the public used to give feedback at the subsequent exhibition. Exhibition data confirmed the initial findings. Study results showed the introspection of subjects that revealed their sense of identity and psychological status. Patients appear as ‘whole people’, not fragmented by diagnosis. Caregivers' portraits reveal their commitment to care. There is also a sense of mutuality and fluidity in the background stories of subjects. Many patient subjects have been caregivers and, at times, caregivers are also patients. Public data emphasised the identity transformation of subjects, the centrality of the idea of mortality, the presence of hope despite adversity, and the importance of empathy and compassion in care.
- Care
- care giving
- art
- medicine
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Supplementary materials
Web Only Data jmh.2009.003780
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Footnotes
Funding The College of Medicine and its Departments of Preventive and Societal Medicine and the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and the College of Public Health, all at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Competing interests None.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Institutional Review Board.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.