Highlighting emotions through concept mapping: an exploratory study of adolescent patients

Abstract

Introduction: Too often neglected to the detriment of therapeutic patient education (TPE), emotions occupy a fundamental place in pedagogy. They deserve to be explored more deeply. Objective: This empirical, qualitative study tests the feasibility of a new technique to elicite and highlighten emotions liked to knowledge organization. Methods: In this study, the patient creates a structure referred to as a "concept map/emotion map" (CM-EM) starting from a concept mapping activity. The emotion map is composed of symbols and colors. The technique is tested on 13 adolescents ranging from 11 to 15 year old, with a range of pathologies (cystic fibrosis, diabetes, asthma). The patients are treated in various health care facilities in the city of Nantes. The opinions of patients and observers are solicited to identify the advantages and limitations of this method. Results: The maps themselves and interviews with adolescents and caregivers show the effectiveness of the method for revealing the patients' emotions patients. We also describe its educational limitations. Conclusion: At this stage of the study, the CM-EM permits a patient to better understand the emotions evoked by his/her illness, and to communicate to the caregiver the nature and intensity of his/her emotions linked to his/her knowledge organization. In return, and this is a new hypothesis, eliciting and highlighting emotions could modify the knowledge organization.

The use of concept maps in the therapeutic patient education field: preliminary study with an analysis of the litterature

“…Some even claim that using concept maps fosters empowerment [12]; -give adolescent patients a way to express and visualize their emotions [19,20]. Odier et al [19] describe the following effects: they can be used for sharing and communication, facilitate the patient-caregiver relationship, focus the caregiver more on the patient, make the patient more aware of his knowledge and feelings by allowing him to verbalize them, giving him greater perspective about his disease. In the follow-up to that first study, Levie [20] tried to determine how expressing emotions can contribute to the process of transforming knowledge.…”