Using Stories to Disseminate Research: the Attributes of Representative Stories

Overview

Journal J Gen Intern Med

Publisher Springer

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2007 Sep 4

PMID 17763914

Citations 8

Authors

John F Steiner

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

When researchers communicate their findings to patients, clinicians, policy-makers, or media, they may find it helpful to supplement quantitative data with stories about individuals who represent themes in their research. Whether such stories are gathered during the research itself or identified from other sources, researchers must develop strategies for assessing their representativeness. This paper proposes 5 attributes of representative stories: (1) expression of important themes in the research, (2) explicit location in the "distribution" of stories that exemplify the theme, (3) verifiability, (4) acknowledgment of uncertainty, and (5) compelling narration. This paper summarizes research on substance abuse among physicians, and uses these 5 attributes to assess the representativeness of a published case report and a fictional short story about addicted physicians. While neither story is fully representative of the research, the process of evaluating these stories illustrates an approach to identifying representative stories for use in disseminating research.

Citing Articles

Finding the Story.

Kaplan-Liss E, Mitchell L, Crossno C, Lantz-Gefroh V J Clin Transl Sci. 2022; 6(1):e25.

PMID: 35321222 PMC: 8922292. DOI: 10.1017/cts.2022.6.

Supporting COVID-19 School Safety for Children With Disabilities and Medical Complexity.

Sherby M, Kalb L, Coller R, DeMuri G, Butteris S, Foxe J Pediatrics. 2021; 149(12 Suppl 2).

PMID: 34737172 PMC: 8926067. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2021-054268H.

Research to Translation: The Healthy Schools Toolkit and New Approaches to the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model.

Purnell J, Lobb Dougherty N, Kryzer E, Bajracharya S, Chaitan V, Combs T J Sch Health. 2020; 90(12):948-963.

PMID: 33184882 PMC: 7702139. DOI: 10.1111/josh.12958.

Communication strategy to disseminate the results of the evaluation of the Port-of-Spain Declaration (POSDEVAL) across multiple audiences in the Caribbean.

Greaves N, Tull J, Hassell T, Samuels T Rev Panam Salud Publica. 2019; 42:e186.

PMID: 31093214 PMC: 6385851. DOI: 10.26633/RPSP.2018.186.

Translating behavioral medicine evidence to public policy.

Emmons K, Gandelman E J Behav Med. 2019; 42(1):84-94.

PMID: 30825091 PMC: 9701573. DOI: 10.1007/s10865-018-9979-7.

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