What do patient stories actually teach us?
July 21, 2026 | Making Health Whole, Patient Stories, health communications, marketing strategy, medcomms
How do we translate individual experiences into support that helps others and create support that feels personal but remains relevant to many?
Hearing directly from people living with a condition often surprises and humbles us. Their stories reveal the realities of everyday life that are often overlooked when we’re bringing a new medicine to market. But every story is unique. So how do we translate individual experiences into support that helps others? How do we create support that feels personal but is relevant to many?
Patient stories are invaluable, but they don’t give us all the answers. They help us ask better questions.
Those questions begin with empathy. Listening is the first step, but unfortunately often the only one. Real empathy is being curious enough to look beyond the obvious explanation. To understand the context, emotions and competing pressures shaping someone’s behaviour. A missed appointment might not simply be forgetfulness. Avoiding treatment might not be denial. What appears to be non-adherence may instead reflect fear, a loss of confidence, changing identity, family responsibilities or the practical realities of fitting treatment around work and everyday life.
Over the years, I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me they only take their blood pressure medication when they can feel their blood pressure is high. We know that’s not how hypertension works, so the reflex would be to correct them. But I’ve found that curiosity is far more useful than correction. When you ask another question, the conversation changes; the medication makes them feel sleepy, or they don’t want to take a drug for life, it makes them feel old, or they don’t want their children asking difficult questions. The issues and concerns are unique, but many of the psychological drivers beneath them are shared: identity, autonomy and social expectation.
Stories tell us what happened; behavioural science helps us to understand why.
Those shared themes give us something to design for, a way of translating individual stories into insights that can inform support for many others.
This is where creativity also has an important role to play; it can inspire, make something memorable and build understanding. It isn’t simply about communicating information; it’s about turning insight into something people can actually use. It can make support feel relevant and achievable in the context of everyday life, or make healthy behaviours feel possible and desirable.
Imagine if patient support didn’t just explain what people should do, but helped them understand why they find it difficult and what they could do about it.
The role of the pharmaceutical industry isn’t to solve every challenge people face. But by understanding the psychological barriers that shape engagement, it can design support that builds confidence, capability and motivation. When people feel better equipped to navigate their own circumstances, healthy behaviours become easier to continue, and better outcomes follow.
That’s what Making Health Whole means in practice. Not assuming every patient needs the same support. Nor believing every patient needs something completely different. It’s recognising that while every life is unique, many of the things that impact our behaviour are shared.
If patient stories help us ask better questions, perhaps our role is to help people ask better questions of themselves.
This content was provided by Mednet