Narrative inquiry as a research methodology exploring person centred care in nursing

Background

Although, person centred care has for a long time been an important approach to nursing care, it is often not a reality in the clinical environment. The focus of health research has, until recently, been on the physical aspects of a persons’ illness and this has influenced how care is delivered. There is a need to broaden the focus from the illness to the person who is ill. A holistic approach to the persons’ social and cultural experience of their illness will aid health care professions to provide person centred care.This paper will make the argument that narrative inquiry is a well suited to health care research in general and nursing research in particular as it focuses its inquiry on the individual person's experience of their illness – ‘what matters’ from the person's point of view. Narrative inquiry explores the narrative from a temporal, social and spatial view.

Conclusions

There is a need to find what is important from the patients’ ‘point of view’ to optimise care. Narrative Inquiry is a methodology often used in education and sociology. It is a gentle relational methodology that has the capability to uncover what is important to the person in their situation. The research findings are presented narratively, that is, informally and engagingly for the consumer of the research.