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Abstract
Narrative medicine is an interdisciplinary field that complements and expands on conventional healthcare training by supporting narrative competence skills and creativity derived from the arts and humanities domains to address the needs of healthcare providers and receivers. With the COVID-19 pandemic having had a profound impact on the healthcare workforce with an already high burn-out rate, multimodal arts interventions may help address the holistic dimensions of well-being. While empirical evidence supports the use of arts-based interventions in promoting healthcare workers’ well-being and personal growth, art prompts are underexplored and underused in narrative medicine. Moreover, protocols and frameworks adopted in extant research on this topic are inconsistent, resulting in replication and validation challenges. These issues have motivated this exploratory-descriptive study with 11 narrative medicine practitioners to examine the use of short art prompts in an online narrative medicine workshop.
The art prompts leveraged art therapy’s Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC) model, which uses the inherent properties of art materials, media and methods to elicit specific levels of information processing and creative experiences. The study aimed to understand how art prompts differ from writing prompts and explore the value art prompts could add to narrative medicine if any. Qualitative analyses revealed that art prompts in narrative medicine increase positive feelings and promote creativity and insight. Specifically, art prompts allowed participants to use sensorimotor functions, enter a flow-like state, be challenged and inspired by novelty and uncertainty, and experience a sense of play and personal discovery.
- art and medicine
- arts in health/arts and health
- narrative medicine
- Medical humanities
- art therapy
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
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Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request.
Footnotes
Contributors The following persons did not make a direct contribution to the planning, conduct, reporting, conception and design, acquisition of data analysis and interpretation of data, etc. However, as committee members of the author's dissertation research, Lisa D. Hinz (Ph.D., ATR-BC), Maria Yelle (PhD, RN) and Arnell Etherington Reader (Ph.D., ATR-BC) crticially reviewed the study. NS is the sole author of this paper.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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