Making invisible MS symptoms visible through a health comic

Through a combination of words, images and storytelling, health comics are a unique way of communicating health information to a diverse range of people.

Claire Robertson, a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen, is researching how these comics can make health information more accessible and engaging. Claire’s background in health psychology, combined with her personal connection to MS when her dad was diagnosed with the condition in 2011, led her to write her very own health comic about invisible MS symptoms.

Through the MS Looking Glass: Navigating the Unseen takes readers on a mystical, Alice in Wonderland-inspired journey through the hidden challenges a person with MS may face in their everyday life.

In this blog, Claire discusses the value of health comics and how she hopes her comic will increase understanding and raise awareness of the hidden symptoms of MS.

There are lots of different challenges communicating health information to the population for a whole host of reasons. People have different needs and abilities that all need to be catered for to ensure fair access to health information.

Poorly communicated health information can cause confusion and distrust, which can ultimately lead to risky health behaviours if people aren’t able to engage with the information in the appropriate way. Successful public health information, on the other hand, is one which the target audience can understand, acknowledge and engage with.

My research proposes that comics can meet these healthcare challenges because they are an accessible and engaging medium, which can be easy tailored to meet the needs of a diverse population with differing needs.

Comics have different communication strategies which set them apart from standard forms of health information (e.g. a leaflet). Comics have a narrative throughout and use storytelling to engage readers. They can also make use of visual metaphors, which are especially useful in health comics. This is where abstract concepts are made more concrete by making them into a visible image. A good example of this is Covid-19 particle transmission. You can’t see this process with your eyes, but a visual metaphor can do a good job of showing this, which can improve understanding.

So, in some instances, health comics can communicate things in a different and clearer way than say a text-based leaflet.

The comic follows the story of Poppy. Through a dream she has, she learns what the reality of living with invisible MS symptoms can be like.

The story is based on Alice in Wonderland (although you don’t have to be familiar with that story to understand the comic). The reasoning for that is to embed unfamiliar concepts, like MS and certain symptoms, in a story that’s likely familiar to a lot of people. This will hopefully make the topic feel slightly less daunting.

The invisible symptoms in the comic, such as fatigue and pain, are represented by characters inspired by Alice in Wonderland (spoiler: Tweedle-numb and Tingle-dee!). The comic uses a lot of visual metaphors – making the unseen seen – so you can physically see the symptom, instead of somebody saying, “I feel like this.”

The research stage of the comic involved speaking to various MS charities and health professionals to get an idea of the topics they felt were poorly communicated, underrepresented or where there was a bit of a gap. This led to the focus on invisible symptoms and making these unseen things visible through the comic.

The comic is primarily aimed at the general public, friends and family of people with MS, employers and potentially people who are newly diagnosed. If you’ve had MS for a while, you probably won’t learn anything new from the comic, but it may make you feel seen and represented.

It’s a resource that people can share with others to help them understand the unseen symptoms of MS. Everybody can hopefully take something from it.

With invisible symptoms, there’s a lot of stigma that can come with them, especially from people who don’t have an understanding of MS. There can be a lot of misunderstanding surrounding hidden symptoms and a lack of awareness of the difficulties that individuals with MS can face daily.

The comic is designed to raise awareness of MS and the less obvious symptoms that come with the condition, like pain, fatigue and bladder problems. This will hopefully start conversations, improve knowledge and understanding, change attitudes towards invisible symptoms, and lead to an improvement in support for people living with MS.

Click here to download the comic, Through the MS Looking Glass: Navigating the Unseen (PDF, 1.45MB)

Claire Robertson is a third-year psychology PhD student at the University of Aberdeen. Her background is in health psychology and her current research looks at how public health information can be made more accessible and engaging through the medium of health comics.