Information world mapping to explicate the information‐care relationship in dementia care

ABSTRACT Information world mapping is a helpful data elicitation technique to make visible the hidden work of finding, using and making sense of information. This methods‐based paper explores the utility of a mapping exercise both within an institutional ethnographic study and in eliciting informants' understandings and descriptions of their care‐related information work. Eleven family caregivers of community‐dwelling older adults living with dementia drew maps of their information worlds. Each map depicts a unique combination of information resources (people, agencies, texts and websites) accessed, relationships that shape the information work in addition to key locations frequented to access information. Given the difficulty in delineating the boundaries of information, the mapping exercise served as a helpful tool for caregivers to make visible the intricacies of their information work, including the barriers encountered and inventive strategies created to access, use and translate information needed to guide and support their care work.