The use of narration in the care of patients with life-threatening diseases

Postgraduate Thesis uoadl:2879586 433 Read counter

Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Οργάνωση & Διαχείριση ανακουφιστικής & υποστηρικτικής φροντίδας χρονίως πασχόντων
Library of the School of Health Sciences
Deposit date:
2019-07-23
Year:
2019
Author:
Vgenopoulou Ioanna
Supervisors info:
Στυλιανός Κατσαραγάκης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, ΕΚΠΑ, Επιβλέπων
Ελισάβετ Πατηράκη, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, ΕΚΠΑ
Μαργαρίτα Γιαννακοπούλου, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Νοσηλευτικής, ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
H χρήση της αφήγησης στη φροντίδα ασθενών με απειλητικά για τη ζωή νοσήματα
Languages:
Greek
Translated title:
The use of narration in the care of patients with life-threatening diseases
Summary:
Introduction: The use of narration as a tool to patients suffering life-threatening diseases, is of great importance as it provides them with the opportunity to deeply understand the experience they go through. The purpose of this review is to highlight the role of narratives in treating patients with life- threatening diseases.
Methods: A research was conducted on the electronic database "Pubmed" and "Google Scholar" to find relevant studies that were published in English and Greek by March 2017. The research in the above-mentioned electronic databases was based on the use of terms (keywords): «narratives», «narrations», «story-telling», «life-threatening illness», «life- threatening disease», «threatening illness», «threatening disease», «illness narratives», «narrative ethics». The studies were considered eligible for full acquired data, if they met the inclusion criteria. Namely a correlation was made between the use of narration and the care of a patient with a life-threatening disease. In addition to this, a correlation with the use of narrative in the relationship of a health professional and a patient, patient and caregiver was conducted. However, no studies were included, in which there was no accurate and clear indication of the existing relation between the use of narration and the care of the patient suffering a life-threatening disease. Moreover, studies concerning the use of narrative in the pediatric population were excluded. From the online search 86 studies were identified, of which only 30 were included in the review, following the implementation of the inclusion and exclusion criteria initially set.
Results: Early studies on the use of narrative were conducted in patients with non-malignant diseases, later researchers focused on the use of narrative in patients with malignant diseases. All non-malignant studies were conducted in England and a method of narrative analysis was followed. Most of the studies found were for patients with malignant disease and all of them were conducted in the United States using interpretative thematic content analysis, phenomenological interpretation and controlled randomized clinical trials, with specialist oncology nurses involved. The findings of the studies show that the use of narration helps to investigate the experience of the illness by highlighting important issues of patients as well as making deep understanding of the illness. In addition to this, through narration it is revealed the effect of illness on aspects of life, life cycle acceptance, and consequently the emergence of imminent death. Furthermore, the narration was combined with other activities as a means of managing the illness, both for patients who are ill and for others involved in the case. Narration as a therapeutic intervention has been found to enhance mood, self-confidence, self-efficacy, life satisfaction, and reduce the level of anxiety and pain. Lastly, patients' narratives were used to assess their needs, identify priorities for evaluation and improve the quality of health services provided, giving health professionals the opportunity to understand the patients' internal phenomenological world.
Conclusions: The narration of a patient suffering a life-threatening disease, who experiences imminent death and the disturbance of his autobiography seems to serve a deeper purpose, the sharing of experience and emotion expressed as a need for intimacy and ultimately for meaning about the possible death and life in general. Thus, it is vital to realize the role of narratives as part of the holistic care plan for patients with a threatening disease, since it is possible to capture all the experiences that are central to the interdisciplinary team.
Main subject category:
Health Sciences
Keywords:
Palliative care, Narrative, Life-threatening diseases
Index:
No
Number of index pages:
0
Contains images:
Yes
Number of references:
205
Number of pages:
134
File:
File access is restricted only to the intranet of UoA.

Vgenopoulou Ioanna MSc.pdf
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File access is restricted only to the intranet of UoA.