Patients' narrative accounts of open-heart surgery and recovery: Authorial voice of technology

Abstract

In this narrative inquiry, we examined patients' experiential accounts of technology in open-heart surgery and recovery. A convenience sample of sixteen individuals was recruited from a preoperative clinic at a regional centre for cardiac services in Canada. Each participated in two interviews following transfer from cardiovascular intensive care and 4-6 weeks post discharge from the hospital. Participants also documented their experiences in journals during the first 3-4 weeks following discharge. The focal point of the study's theoretical foundations was narrative emplotment, which directs attention to the active processes of plot construction and shaping forces of stories. In our narrative analysis, we used narrative mapping to document the temporal flow of events. We found that technology acted as the authorial voice, or controlling influence, over how participants' narratives were shaped and unfolded. Key were the ways in which technology as the authorial voice was linked with participants becoming background characters and surrendering agency. Problematic and important to health care professionals is ensuring that authorial voice shifts back to patients so that they become active in shaping their own course of recovery. This study underscores the benefits of using literary techniques such as narrative analysis in health science research. Examining the narrative structures and forces that shape patients' stories sheds light on how health care professionals and their technologically-driven practices of care strongly affect the stories' content and how they unfold. By focusing on how stories unfolded, we revealed ways in which cardiac surgery practices and patients' course of recovery could be enhanced.