Determining Patient Readiness to Share Their Healthcare Stories: A Tool for Prospective Patient Storytellers to Determine Their Readiness to Discuss Their Healthcare Experiences

Abstract

Patient stories can serve as educational tools for healthcare providers. Inherent risks to the patients sharing their medical stories do exist. Despite the positive impact that patient storytelling can have in healthcare delivery, it is important to ensure the safety of those patients who chose to share their medical experiences. A novel questionnaire was developed by a diverse group of healthcare and patient partner experts. This questionnaire would serve as a self-reflective tool that prospective storytellers would complete in order to assess their readiness to proceed with storytelling as an educational tool. This draft questionnaire was then distributed to the 10 prospective patient storytellers registered to complete our pilot workshop on preparing the patient stories where they were asked to provide feedback. Overall, feedback was positive, and minor alterations were made to the questionnaire, resulting in the novel creation of this readiness assessment tool.