Creating a return to work Medical Readers’ Theatre

Abstract

Background Previous work on sickness absence has shown that conversations about return to work can be challenging. The perception of competing interests and multiple stakeholders in the return to work process may also complicate and erode trust, further impacting health and well-being. Aims This study aims to explore the themes arising from the experiences of physicians and patients on the impact of health and return to work. The goal was to use these results to develop a Medical Readers’ Theatre workshop focusing on negotiating challenging return to work scenarios to serve as an educational support for stakeholders. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 physicians and 15 patients from the Canadian Maritime Provinces on their experiences in return to work following an injury or illness. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Using the emergent themes, an educational workshop in the modality of Readers’ Theatre was developed. Results The findings confirm there are multiple stakeholders involved in the return to work process and the factors influencing successful return are not always medically related. Six recurring themes were identified for the patient group and five for the physicians’, allowing the development of storylines and four return to work scenarios. The scenarios have been used in teaching sessions. Conclusions The themes reinforced that challenges in return to work are not always medical in nature. This Readers’ Theatre adopts perspectives of patients, physicians and other stakeholders whilst focusing on return to work with the goal of providing engagement in reflective and purposeful discussion.

Transitions Theatre: Creating a Research-Based Reader’s Theatre With Disabled Youth and Their Families

“…With the growing popularity of arts-informed methods in health research, researchers started developing reader’s theatre scripts based on qualitative research data such as interviews, focus groups, and field notes (e.g., Kek et al, 2021 ; Langlois et al, 2017 ). However, few published articles describe how research participants were involved in the script development after initial data collection.…”

“…As a subgenre under research-based theatre (Saldaña, 2016), reader's theatre has garnered interest among health researchers who wish to elicit tacit and implicit knowledge and to disseminate research findings beyond scholarly circles. Reader's theatre has been widely implemented in health education to facilitate a deep conversation on challenging topics such as patients' experiences of interacting with service providers (Langlois et al, 2017;Pardue, 2004), end-of-life care (Shapiro & Cho, 2011), and patients' experiences with returning to work after injury (Kek et al, 2021). Furthermore, Rosenbaum et al (2005) contend that creating reader's theatre scripts from qualitative data could embrace the personal nature of patient narratives in a way that is substantively different from traditional qualitative analysis.…”