MEDICINA NARRATIVA E TRAUMA CRANICO ENCEFALICO: VALUTAZIONE DELLO STRESS CRONICO NEL PAZIENTE E NEGLI ACCUDITORI.

This work aims to investigate whether the narrative medicine is an effective tool for the evaluation of chronic stress, in patients with traumatic brain injury and in their families. The research is divided in two parts; the first one is composed by three subtitles: the theory about the narrative method; a comparison between EBM and NBM; and finally the acquired disability due to concussion. The second part concerns the practice: the core of the study are the interviews with the family members of patients who participated in the research. The aims of the survey were the identification of the complete history of the patient and family through the narrative method, the description of the relational changes that undergoes the core after the trauma and the identification of the internal dynamics to it. The research suggests the possibility that the narrative interview can be a valuable means of investigation and an instrument of important communication with the medical staff and operators. Besides, the use of the narrative method to let the patients and their families tell their stories, allows a greater understanding of what they have been through, creating continuously new meanings of the suffering they experienced in their lives. Finally, this method leaves just a minor feeling of loneliness, so that the pain proved by the patient and his family could be turned on a positive way to face the experience. The project started on September 2014 and it was finished on February 2015.