Retelling Ones Life Story - Using Narratives to Improve Quality of Life

During the last years research in the field of narrative based medicine showed the efficiency of using illness narratives to stimulate coping processes. Following this we examined the utilization of the narrative approach in persons with aphasia, a neurological language disorder. We developed an interdisciplinary approach of biographic-narrative work to improve Quality of Life (QoL). Many persons with aphasia experience reduced social participation and a loss of QoL. Although life story work can support processes of sense-making, only a few studies use a biographic-narrative approach in aphasic patients because of the impaired language abilities (Shadden, 2005). In our approach we target identity renegotiation and social participation through an adapted biographic-narrative intervention.

The study was set in a pre- and post-test-design with a follow-up assessment three months after the intervention. Five face-to-face biographic-narrative interviews and seven group sessions were conducted over ten weeks with a sample of 17 participants with chronic but different types of aphasia.

In accordance with our hypotheses, we found a significant and stable improvement in health-related QoL. Also self-reported states of mood as e.g. “happiness” grew significantly. The results show the efficiency of working with narratives as a supplementary method for improving QoL. The transferability of this intervention to other patients is an open question for discussion and further research.  

The current work is supported by a grant of the German Federal Ministery of Education and Research (BMBF, FKZ 17S10X11)