Sex, Cancer and Art Textile Activism: Empowering Patients and Challenging Health Professionals
- Submitting institution
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Staffordshire University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- Lists 31
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
- Hotel Grande Real, Albuferia, Portugal; Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust; Manchester Conference Centre; R. Space, Lisburn, Northern Ireland; Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham; Kings College London.
- Brief description of type
- A collection of practice-based artefacts and activity, conferences, workshops and publication that address different aspects of a single project and are collectively greater than the sum of their parts.
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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4
- Research group(s)
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A - The C3 Centre: Creative Industries and Creative Communities
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Empowering Patients and Challenging Health Professionals: Sex, Cancer and Art Textile Activism is a multi-faceted research project which identifies methods for cancer patients to side-step their unease and communicate with medical professionals about any sexual and relationship problems that they have experienced during or after their medical treatment. Led by Dobson, the project explores how art textile can provide an alternative language for patients to articulate their emotions and any sexual difficulties.
The research methodology involved collaborative research with breast cancer patients. It produced a system for crafting textile artworks, which has then empowered patients to create works that express their perceived unmet emotional and sexual needs. The research methodology also involved consultation and collaboration with health professionals, who often reported feeling anxious and inadequately skilled to handle patients’ questions on sexuality and relationships. The research sought address this issue by developing teaching materials that present arts textiles as a neutral, non-hierarchical communication system. Subsequently, arts textiles practice establishes the practitioner-patient relationship as people working to help one another understand a difficult, hard-to-articulate situation.
Since 2017, the Christie NHS Foundation Trust Hospital (Europe’s largest single site cancer centre) has used the research to support medical professionals who work with patients who suffer sexual difficulties. The Christie’s Gynae-oncology department also collects artworks made in the communication process, using them to support patients in understanding how their illness and treatment can affect their sexual anatomy. The project has resulted in 3 conference presentations, 1 published peer-reviewed paper and 2 symposium papers, educational workshops for NHS practitioners and nursing students, a toolkit for use in NHS patient consultations, a series of 20 Support and Information Study Days for Macmillan Cancer Services charity workers, and a co-produced patient/artist website.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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