Background There is inequity in the palliative and end of life outcomes for people from minority ethnic backgrounds. Some of this may relate to the practices of health care professionals. We have developed an evidence based training resource to enhance confidence and competence in providing this care. This is part of a wider NIHR funded study exploring the barriers and enablers to advance care planning.
Methods To share our findings we developed fictionalised narratives and stories. These were constructed from 93 interviews exploring the experiences of 18 longitudinal patient-centred case studies, as well as interviews with 19 bereaved family caregivers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Facilitated virtual workshops, or workbooks, with 50 public and professional stakeholders informed the iterative development of the narratives. We worked with a professional writer/storyteller and producer to develop the final outputs
Results Eight stories mapped to the key themes of the study findings have been produced in short (2 minute) and long (5 minute) audio recordings. The stories have been integrated within a new e-learning module in e-ELCA and are available alongside an educator guide on the project website. Feedback indicates that these are a powerful and valuable way of increasing the awareness of health professionals about key issues and motivating them to make changes in their practice.
Conclusions A story causes affective, cognitive and belief changes in the listener. Research suggests that empathy and identification with characters and vivid imagery change the usual way of thinking and acting of the person hearing the story. We suggest that sharing key messages through stories is important when the objective is to change attitudes and influence behaviours and that such narrative outputs may increase the impact of research.
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