Examining Illness through Pediatric Poetry and Prose: A Mixed Methods Study

The purpose of this mixed-methods retrospective study was to characterize the linguistic and narrative properties of texts generated by hospitalized pediatric patients who are experiencing significant illnesses. These young writers voluntarily participated in a narrative intervention through a program at a children's hospital that serves diverse urban and rural populations. The primary aim was to use interpretive theoretical analysis and linguistic analysis to test the following hypotheses: (1) hospital-generated texts have linguistic characteristics consistent with texts written to improve health outcomes; (2) stories told by pediatric patients through poetry and prose can be classified using Frank's illness narrative types, serving as a starting point to situate caregivers into the pediatric writer's world in a moment in time; (3) pediatric stories are authentic stories that yield important insights about patients and their relationships with others despite lacking formal narrative elements (e.g., plot) and form.