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. 2024 Dec;45(4):369-389.
doi: 10.1007/s10912-024-09880-y. Epub 2024 Jul 23.

Using Comics as Data Collection and Training Tools to Understand and Prevent Provider-Enacted HIV Stigma

J Blake Scott  1 , Christa L Cook  2 , Nathan Holic  2 , Maeher Sukhija  2 , Aislinn Woody  2
Affiliations

Using Comics as Data Collection and Training Tools to Understand and Prevent Provider-Enacted HIV Stigma

J Blake Scott et al. J Med Humanit. 2024 Dec.

Abstract

Comic storyboards that participants co-create can function as generative data collection tools when integrated into interviews or focus groups in a qualitative-rhetorical study. As a preliminary stage of a study, user testing comic storyboards can help ensure that they are generative and participant-informed, the latter being especially important when researching issues related to participant vulnerability, such as stigma. This article discusses the exigency, user testing, adaptation, and affordances of comic storyboards as data collection or story elicitation tools in a study of provider-enacted HIV stigma. Our user testing of comics storyboards enabled us to implement more responsive, participant-centered, and participatory forms of data collection. Given that the goal of this study is to develop anti-stigma provider training materials in the form of comics, participants' contributions through user testing not only helped us improve our data collection in the main study, but also generated input that informed our conceptualization and drafting of provider training comics.

Keywords: Comics; Data collection; HIV stigma; Story elicitation; User testing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval: The study discussed in this article was approved by the University of Central Florida Institutional Review Board, in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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