Journal of Medical Sciences and Health Care Research
Narrative Approach and Analytical Processes Used in Health Sciences: A Systematic Review
Abstract
Francois Xavier Kemtchuain Taghe and Nicolas Fernandez
This systematic review aims to comprehensively identify the various narrative approaches used by health science researchers to highlight the underlying principles guiding their methodological and analytical choices when conducting narrative research. To select articles, keywords validated by University of Montreal Health librarians were applied to specialized databases in the fields of health and/or medical education. The dimensional analysis of Bowers and Schatzman then proved consistent with the development of a dimensional matrix around the construct “narrative approaches in health sciences,” from which we proceeded to analyze the corpus of 30 selected articles [1]. The construct “narrative approaches in health sciences” has six dimensions. Furthermore, researchers use thematic analysis (93.66%) to analyze narrative data. Finally, intentional and theoretical frameworks guide the researchers’ methodological and analytical choices.