Harnessing the power of empathy, visual art and patient narratives to improve health literacy: An exploratory study.

Student artist participants' EQ Cognitive Empathy (EQ-CE) scores were associated with 'Emotional Reactivity' (EQ-ER) (p = .038). SF-36 scores revealed that role limitations due to physical health and emotional problems had the greatest impact on patient/carer participant's life at the time. The SF-36 General Health domain was associated with the EQ-ER total score (p = .044). Exhibition surveys revealed that 96.9% of observers had learnt something new about illness or injury. SO WHAT?: Although a relatively small study, our findings suggest patient/carer narratives and visual art is a simple yet effective modality for health service organisations to facilitate affective learning and improve health literacy when engaging with consumers.