Nursing Narratives, Reflective Practice and Professional Development (NarratUN)

Background: In addition to foster reflective practice, clinical narratives may be used as a means to improve nurses' critical thinking and their acquisition of clinical competencies. However, few studies have studied their potential value to promote nursing professional development and there is no evidence that shows their value as a tool to improve nurses' competencies to provide a person-centred nursing care.

Purpose: To evaluate the preliminary efficacy of narratives for the development of three nursing professional competences -respect, intentional presence and knowing the person- paramount to provide person-centred care.

Method: A pilot quasi-experimental study. A total of 34 nurses enrolled in a global training course of a nursing specialization were recruited in September 2016. All the nurses received a multi-component intervention based on the Critical Reflexive Inquiry Model. The strategies of this program consisted in the writing of 3 narratives; 3 masterclass of 3, 2 and 3 hours respectively; a discussion group; and a face-to-face interview. The NarratUN Evaluation tool was used to assess outcomes. The primary outcome was the difference in the mean of respect, intentional presence and knowing the person pre and post intervention. Changes within nurses were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed Rank test.