Narrative in Health and Social Care: 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue focuses on the use of narrative in clinical and research practice, and on its potential to actively involve both patients and health professionals in the improvement of patient healthcare. The focus on narrative will be twofold: On the one hand, the focus is on clinical practice and on how narrative medicine has encouraged the training of health professionals in the use of patient narratives in clinical practice over the past twenty years. On the other hand, the focus is on narrative research that, thanks to the collection and use of the patients and healthcare professionals’ narratives, is similarly placed among the objectives of improving clinical practice.

The present Special Issue intends to share the experience of various international research groups, favoring a methodological reflection between different health professionals that can bring the research procedure closer to daily medical practice, with the aim of encouraging and improving patient care.

We welcome papers (original research papers—qualitative research, quantitative research, and mixed methods research—review articles, and book reviews) addressing some of the core research questions related to narrative strategies and evidence applied to several topics, such as:

• How patients’ illness experience can be used in clinical practice;
• The role of narrative (medicine and research) in the doctor–patient relationship;
• Narratives in Health Education;
• Formal and informal caregivers’ burden: using their stories to reflect on care;
• Health professionals’ quality of life;
• Narrative and disability: the potential of narratives on disability studies;
• Narrative and identity: creating self in the narrative;
• Narrative and the impact of living with a chronic or rare disease.

Dr. Covelli Venusia
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• narrative medicine
• narrative research
• narrative medicine and narrative research in health and social care
• narrative tools in health and social care
• narrative medicine and narrative research in disability studies
• narrative in the doctor–patient relationship
• narrative and identity
• narrative writing and psychotherapy

• Narrative in Health and Social Care in Healthcare (10 articles)

Title: Complementary and alternative medicine and emotional processing in people with migraine or tension-type headache: a scoping review
Authors: Alessandra Marelli; Licia Grazzi; Marina Angela Visco; Pietro Crescenzo; Alessandra Bavagnoli; Cristal Sirotich; Venusia Covelli
Affiliation: Università degli Studi eCampus
Abstract: This narrative review aims to summarize the effect of non-pharmacological treatments (e.g. relaxation training, meditation, written intervention) on emotional expression, processing, control, or management in patients with migraine and tension-type headaches, that previous literature has shown to be related to migraine pain perception and headache symptoms. Online databases PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Medline were searched to identify studies published between 2000 and 2023. A descriptive synthesis of the included studies was conducted. We included 7 articles after screening 1.173 records. A total of 610 patients with a diagnosis of migraine or tension-type headache, and average age 19–45.5 years (68–90.4% females) were recruited in the selected studies. Overall, the results show that non-pharmacological alternative approaches to headache treatment contribute to the management, reduction, or control of negative emotions and at the same time have a positive impact on pain perception and headache symptoms. However, in some cases, the effects are more promising than others depending on the peculiarities or limitations of each approach considered. The review provides useful insights from a methodological point of view for future studies on the management or control of negative emotions in patients with migraine and tension-type headaches.