Highlights
- •The study demonstrated positive impacts of arts-based narrative training for nurses.
- •Narrative training improved nursing collaboration and therapeutic relationships.
- •Narrative training is an innovative way to reduce adverse work-related outcomes.
- •“Moral empathic distress” was identified in this study and may be an emerging phenomenon in this nursing context.
Abstract
Purpose
Empathy is deemed essential to nursing, yet interventions that promote and sustain
empathy in practicing nurses within healthcare organizations are limited. We tested
the feasibility and perceived impact of an arts-based narrative training intervention
involving pediatric rehabilitation nurses for the purpose of promoting nursing empathy.
Design and Methods
One-group qualitative repeated-measures design at an urban Canadian pediatric rehabilitation
hospital. Eight nurse participants attended six 90-minute weekly group narrative training
sessions and two in-depth interviews pre- and post-intervention.
Results
The intervention positively impacted participants in three primary domains: Empathy
for Patients and Families, Empathy Within Nursing Team, and Empathy for the Self.
Major findings included: increased value placed on patients' and families' backstory,
identification of “moral empathic distress” (MED), enhanced sense of collaborative
nursing community, and renewal of professional purpose.
Conclusions
This study is the first of its kind conducted in the pediatric rehabilitation nursing
context. Results indicate that arts-based narrative training enhances nursing empathy
and contributes to a supportive nursing culture.
Practice Implications
In addition to enhancing empathy in clinical domains, nurses who participated in narrative
training reported improved team collaboration, self-care practices, and renewed professional
purpose. The results from the intervention are encouraging and future research needs
to explore its utility in other settings with larger and more diverse sample.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 11, 2018
Accepted:
June 23,
2018
Received in revised form:
June 20,
2018
Received:
December 22,
2017
Identification
Copyright
Crown Copyright © 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
