Enhancing the post-stroke patient experience at mealtime through participatory design: Eliciting, connecting and supporting multi-voicedness

• Author(s): Neves, Sandra
• Date: 2014
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/4858
• Origin: IC-online
• Subject(s): Domínio/Área Científica::Humanidades::Artes
• Document Type: Doctoral thesis
• Language: English
• Advisor(s): Macdonald, Alastair S; Hush, Gordon
• Contributor(s): IC-Online

Description

Context/issue Stroke is the major cause of disability in both Scotland and Portugal. It is estimated that each year stroke affects 15,000 people in Scotland and approximately 21,000 in Portugal, and possibly one-third of these individuals require rehabilitation. Research (Ekberg et al., 2002; Wright et al., 2005) has identified that the quality of the mealtime experience for patients affected by stroke in rehabilitation is poor, which may be demotivating and a factor in influencing recovery. Questions and previous studies Is there an opportunity for design methods and approaches to help understand and improve the patient mealtime experience and if so, how? In previous studies, Cottam and Leadbeater (2004), Murray et al. (2006) and Boyle and Harris (2009) suggest that the integration of multi-stakeholders’ participation into the design process can be valuable. Bate and Robert (2007) suggest directly taking account of patients’ and healthcare professionals’ experiences – “the real virtuosos of the experience” (Sanders, 2001) – as the basis for designing service improvements and, consequently, better experiences. So, can design approaches help elicit patients’ and healthcare professionals’ “voices” and can these voices be used to help enhance the quality of the mealtime experience for patients undergoing stroke rehabilitation and if so, how? Methodology This thesis adopts a participatory design (PD) approach to play a role in engaging and structuring the direct participation of patients and healthcare professionals in research. This method encompasses socialised and materialised situations in time and space with a focus on understanding the reasons behind current experiences while also exploring desirable futures. The analysis is based on translating and interpreting those patients’ and healthcare professionals’ voices, using the principles of framework analysis.