The tools of Narrative Medicine for promoting nurse self-care. A literature review

Abstract

Background. The tools of Narrative Medicine, particularly Close Reading and Reflective Writing, are used in medical education to prepare health care professionals to welcome, understand, in-terpret and respond to illness experience narratives and thereby gain "additional information" from peoplÈs life stories. A rarely discussed issue concerns the application of these tools to improve nurses’ self-care, and this is where the interest of this literature review has deveLoped. Objectives. The purpose of the review is to describe whether Nar-rative Medicine tools have been used to promote nurse practitioners’ self-care; in addition, we investigate what effectiveness these tools may have and which outcomes are being measured. Methods. The review was conducted in the Medline (via PubMed) and PsycInfo databases, using the keywords: Narrative Medicine, Narrative Based Medicine, Nurses, Selfcare, Narrative, Caring, Outcomes, Stressors, Nursing, Nurse. Results. The literature shows that healthcare professionals who use Close Reading and Reflective Writing strengthen certain skills such as listening and observing carefully, identifying details hidden in pa-tients’ stories, and improving self-awareness. These skills are fundamental to the development of empathy, but they also offer the opportunity to learn more about oneself. These tools can be used with pa-tients and in the working team; they can help build a mutually sup-portive working relationship. Close Listening is a method that allows to listen more carefully and capture from the words of the assisted
person her thoughts, ideas, emotions, feelings, expectations, desires
and also to recognize onès own. Conclusions. The tools of Narrative Medicine, in addition to making
the helping relationship effective, enhance the promotion of health
professionals’ self-care. Further studies could be conducted regarding
the effectiveness of these tools in the training of nurses and in situations
of acute stress.