Designing and delivering facilitated storytelling interventions for chronic disease self-management: a scoping review

Abstract

BackgroundLittle is known about how to develop and deliver storytelling as an intervention to support those managing chronic illnesses. This scoping review aims to describe the core elements of storytelling interventions in order to help facilitate its implementation.MethodsA scoping review was conducted in seven databases for articles published up to May 2014 to identify interventions that describe in detail how storytelling was used to support people in disease self-management interventions.ResultsTen articles met all inclusion criteria. Core elements consistently observed across the storytelling interventions were: reflection and interactive meaning-making of experiences; principles of informality and spontaneity; non-directional and non-hierarchical facilitation; development of group norms and conduct to create a community among participants; and both an individual and collective role for participants. Differences were also observed across interventions, such as: the conceptual frameworks that directed the design of the intervention; the type and training of facilitators; intervention duration; and how session topics were selected and stories delivered. Furthermore, evaluation of the intervention and outcome assessment varied greatly across studies.ConclusionThe use of storytelling can be a novel intervention to enhance chronic disease self-management. The core elements identified in the review inform the development of the intervention to be more patient-centred by guiding participants to take ownership of and lead the intervention, which differs significantly from traditional support groups. Storytelling has the potential to provide patients with a more active role in their health care by identifying their specific needs as well as gaps in knowledge and skills, while allowing them to form strong bonds with peers who share similar disease-related experiences. However, measures of impact differed across interventions given the variation in chronic conditions. Our findings can guide future development and implementations of storytelling interventions.

Storytelling to Support Disease Self-Management by Adults With Type 2 Diabetes

“…Facilitators also shared their own stories, inspiring trust (21). Together, our findings and previous research suggest that storytelling is acceptable for patients and for facilitators (3,4,6,22).…”

“…Few studies have evaluated the effects of group storytelling interventions on chronic-disease self-management (4). These evaluations had heterogeneous target populations, study designs, curricula and program implementations, limiting the evaluations' abilities to compare the interventions' efficacy (4). Furthermore, limited information is available about the feasibility and acceptability of storytelling among patients and care providers (3,5,6).…”

Storytelling as a Therapeutic Tool for Family Support in Bulimia Nervosa

“…In this particular way, ST could be a good approach for both patient self-management and family management. For this proposal, core principles of ST, when applied to health contexts, have been reported to be social cognitive and ecological theories of health behavior, caring and healing, and narrativeautobiographical approaches [17][18][19][20]. There are two main objectives of ST in health interventions: (a) to get patients/families to reflect the illness experience and (b) to create meaning from it [20].…”

“…As Gucciardi et al have reviewed, health conditions such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, multiple sclerosis, or psychiatric disorders are frequent diseases in which ST has been applied [20]. Sessions of ST are based on informal-spontaneous sharing of stories by means of a nondirective facilitation approach.…”

Neuroscience-informed psychoeducation for addiction medicine: A neurocognitive perspective

“…Raising awareness among young people about addiction and its detrimental impacts on health through narrative methods was found to be effective in reducing adolescents’ risk to drug use (Moghadam et al, 2016). In addition to telling their own stories, listening to others reflect on their own experiences with a disorder and the benefit of particular treatments or coping strategies can help patients recognize their similar struggles and decrease resistance to treatment and behavior change (Gucciardi et al, 2016; Houston et al, 2011). The practice of “episodic future thinking” (EFT), or imagining one’s personal future and projecting the self in a preexperienced event (Atance and O’Neill, 2001) may also be helpful.…”