Cognitive and Emotional Processes Underlying Narratives in the Healthcare Context

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, there has been growing recognition of the need to incorporate a narrative in the healthcare context to inform health policies, decisions, and practice, along with biomedical evidence. In this regard, narrative medicine has been developed to recognize and interpret patients’ experiences by focusing on illness-related psychosocial aspects, which can provide unique insights to inspire an integrated approach to the person. The power of narrative has also been identified around healthcare providers’ education and training to enhance self-reflection and support patient health behavior change, engagement, and overall quality of life. The narrative can thus be considered a co-construction process between patients and practitioners, whose cognitive and emotional aspects are particularly informative to realize personalized care. This Special Issue focuses on the role of narratives in the healthcare context, welcoming both empirical and theoretical contributions. Examples may include:

- the analysis of illness stories of patients with psychological or medical conditions to grasp their lived experiences, regardless of theoretical and methodological approach (e.g., phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, discourse analysis);

- the use of healthcare professionals’ narratives to promote an understanding of patient psychological needs, doctor-patient communication, and care relationship more widely;

- the role of narrative-based interventions (e.g., therapeutic writing, expressive disclosure) to improve patient health, satisfaction, and engagement, as well as to develop reflective practice and awareness amongst healthcare providers.

Dr. Andrea Caputo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• illness stories
• narrative medicine
• clinical psychology
• health psychology
• text analysis
• healthcare professionals
• therapeutic writing
• narrative-based interventions
• doctor-patient communication