STORY AND WELLBEING IN REGISTERED NURSES

Purpose: The health and wellbeing of nurses is essential to reducing burnout and turnover in our profession. Story as a potential self-care strategy has the potential to promote health and wellbeing among nurses, which may increase satisfaction and decrease turnover. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to: 1) describe the use of story and story sharing/telling in nursing practice, and 2) describe how story contributes to the nursing workplace.

Background:  Although story is a healing strategy often seen in practice, story is not typically recognized as a method for self-care. Therefore, nurses may not be aware they are using story or that they could use story as a self-care approach. More research was needed to determine the potential of story to promote wellbeing in nurses. 

 

Method: A qualitative descriptive approach was used as method of inquiry and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Thirteen registered nurses who responded to a recruitment letter posted and/or an email were interviewed for this study. All participants were informed of their rights as participants and signed a University of Arizona Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved consent form prior to participation

Participants ranged in age from 29 to 66 years with an average age of 48.9 years. Experience level ranged from 1- 42 years of nursing with an average of 23.5 years of nursing experience. The participants represented a range of nursing specialties and educational levels from ADN (n=2), Diploma (n= 1) BSN (n=5), Masters (n=4) to doctoral preparation (n=1). Six of the 13 nurses were staff nurses in an acute care setting. The remaining seven nurses were comprised of a unit manager, case manager, advanced practice nurse, home healthcare nurse, professional practice specialist and a clinical leader. All participants were female.

 

Findings: Findings revealed that stories are inherent in the practice of professional nursing. Nurses share a common bond and connection through sharing stories about the nursing profession. This connection spans generations, care settings, specialty, levels of education, training and experience. Nurses also use story as a way of remembering and processing information and to teach and mentor each other through the experiences they encounter in work settings. This sharing on the job and outside of work settings is more memorable and valuable to nurses than what they learn in the classroom or through textbooks and case study presentations.

Conclusions: Story creates ease for nurses through validation of shared human experience. When an individual feels heard, both the storyteller and listener benefit from the understanding that is gained from the exchange. Time was the greatest barrier to this exchange within nursing practice. Nurses believe that there is a limited amount of time due to the complexity of the work environment, demands on their time, and current structure of the healthcare system.