A narrative medicine‐based training program increases the humanistic care quality of new nurses in cancer hospital

Abstract

With the change of medical model, the cancer nurses should not only pay attention to patients' physical pain, but also patients' psychological distress, which requires cancer nurses to have a high quality of humanistic care. This study aims to explore the humanistic care quality of new nurses in cancer hospital and effects of the narrative medicine‐based training program on the new nurses of cancer hospital. A total of 101 new nurses in a cancer hospital received the narrative medicine‐based training in 2020. Before and after the training, they were investigated with humanistic care quality questionnaire and empathy ability questionnaire. The course included narrative therapy overview, narrative medicine overview, narrative nursing, psychological nursing cases of cancer patients, and so on. After training, the total score of the humanistic care and quality empathy ability increased significantly, and the comparison was statistically significant. The total score of empathy after the training (98.44 ± 2.23) was higher than the score before the training (86.35 ± 7.53) (p < .05). The total score of humanistic care quality after the training (184.45 ± 14.34) was higher than the score before the training (161.45 ± 15.45) (p < .01). The scores of all dimensions were statistically significant. The narrative medicine‐based training program could increase the empathy ability of the new cancer nurses and improve the humanistic care quality. This program is suitable for clinical promotion and application. The study findings could have implications for medical institute to increase the humanistic care quality of new nurses.