Narrative-based learning for person-centred healthcare: the Caring Stories learning framework

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Education
• Medical Humanities
• Narrative Medicine

Background:

• Healthcare professionals require enhanced skills to understand and address the complex needs of older patients.
• Current training models may not adequately foster empathy and patient-centered communication.
• Patient narratives offer a rich resource for developing deeper clinical understanding and compassionate care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe an innovative narrative-based learning framework, "Caring Stories," for healthcare professionals.
• To promote person-centered care (PCC) by centering patients' desires and needs in training.
• To equip professionals with competencies for interpreting older patients' lifeworlds and navigating complex care.

Main Methods:

• Development of a spiral learning framework integrating narrative pedagogy, narrative inquiry, and expansive/transformative learning theories.
• Utilizing older patients' narratives as the core content for training healthcare professionals.
• Drawing on pragmatism to support interprofessional education and professionals' mindsets.

Main Results:

• The framework provides a theoretically sophisticated methodology for training diverse healthcare professionals in PCC.
• It enhances professionals' ability to understand patients' lifeworlds and improve communication.
• The approach is adaptable beyond the initial target patient group.

Conclusions:

• The narrative-based learning framework offers a robust pedagogical foundation for healthcare education.
• It effectively disseminates conceptual ideas about narrative in healthcare, fostering closer practitioner-patient relationships.
• The framework is a generic, adaptable synthesis of critical orientations to narrative in healthcare education.