Digital Storytelling: An Innovative Tool for Practice, Education, and Research

Abstract

Digital storytelling is a method of using storytelling, group work, and modern technology to facilitate the creation of 2-3 minute multi-media video clips to convey personal or community stories. Digital storytelling is being used within the health care field; however, there has been limited documentation of its application within occupational therapy. This paper introduces digital storytelling and proposes how it can be applied in occupational therapy clinical practice, education, and research. The ethical and methodological challenges in relation to using the method are also discussed.

Nuestras Historias- Designing a novel digital story intervention through participatory methods to improve maternal and child health in the Peruvian Amazon

“…PhotoVoice and digital storytelling have been combined in the past for needs assessments and advocacy work [ 23 , 42 , 43 ], but this is one of the first studies that uses the combination in order to create a public health intervention, and the only existing study that documents the creation of a digital story-based maternal health intervention and assesses its acceptability. The main strength of the methodology is that the entire curriculum was designed using participatory community-based methods, leaving no question as to whether the curriculum would apply well to the community.…”

“…Focusing on the issues uncovered through PhotoVoice, the study works with community members to develop a Digital Story Curriculum (DSC). Digital stories are short, 3–5 minute videos that use audio-recorded personal narratives accompanied by narrator-selected photos, and have developed recent popularity as a public health tool [ 22 ]. Digital stories are made by community members and are thus inherently shaped around specific community needs.…”

Development of a self-directed, online-learning curriculum to increase community-engaged research in clinical and translational science

“…implementation of CEnR. We plan to link the modules to social media platforms as well as our collection of digital stories (testimonials) from faculty and community partners to enhance learning opportunities [14].…”

Digital storytelling in health professions education: a systematic review

“…To date, researchers have written commentaries and theoretical papers explaining the intricacies of creating and using health professionals’ as well as patients’ digital stories in a range of health sectors [ 8 , 11 , 12 ]. There are also some reviews that allude to or focus on digital storytelling.…”