P-08

Background, relevance and purpose

In 2013 the ‘Circle of Stories’ (in Dutch: Verhalencirkel) was developed. The Verhalencirel intends to facilitate conversations concerning the spiritual dimension of palliative care, between professionals and (palliative) patients. First impressions from users are only positive, though user experiences with the Verhalencirkel not yet systematically evaluated. To make this tool a better fit for spiritual conversations between professionals and patients, we evaluated who, and how the Verhalencirkel is applied by professionals or lay people.

Methods

We set up a questionnaire and included questions about the way of use and additional requirements for proper application of the Verhalencirkel. The questionnaire contained open as well as multiple-choice questions. Respondents were reached by local network coordinators palliative care of whom they were aware the Verhalencirkel was used. Data-analyses focused on user-subgroups. Open questions were analysed qualitatively by thematic analyses.

Results

45 respondents reported about their user experiences. They use the Verhalencirkel primarily in their conversations with palliative patients and less with other patient groups. Fourty respondents reported the Verhalencirkel helped initiating deep-level conversations that would not have been reached when the Verhalencirkel was not applied. The component concerning seasons and question circle is most popular. Nearly all respondents are positive about the design of the tool, though they would like to have it in a more compact format.

Conclusions

Users are very positive about the design and content of the Verhalencirkel, though the size is not very manageable when users would like to travel. The topics are input for interviewing end users, in order to finetune the Verhalenwijzer to user criteria.