The use of narrative approaches to improve quality of care for older persons: A scoping review

This scoping review provides an overview of narrative approaches used to collect experiences of older persons in long-term care and how these approaches support learning and quality improvement. Long-term care organizations increasingly use narrative approaches to collect older persons' experiences and improve care from their perspective, but information about such approaches is scattered. Studies describing narrative approaches that collected experiences of older persons (or proxies) to support learning and quality improvement in long-term care. A systematic search was performed in eight databases (e.g., Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO). Articles in English or Dutch were eligible, with no publication date restrictions. Searches were completed on 28 April 2022. Several data items were charted using Excel. Thirty-seven articles were included describing a narrative approach. Most studies originated from Western countries and focused on institutional care. Older persons with and without cognitive decline participated in the approaches. Experiences were mainly collected through interviews, while the process of learning and improving quality of care was often supported by group discussions. Goals and outcomes were formulated at client, professional/relational, and organizational levels. A variety of approaches are developed to collect narrative information from older persons to improve quality of long-term care. Development opportunities for narrative approaches are including people with (severe) cognitive decline, embedding approaches in organisations for more structural effects to support learning and quality improvement and evaluating the impact and execution of narrative approaches.