Culture is Care: Training Workshop for Care Workers (VerbaCurant) (VerbaCurant)

"Culture is Care: Training Workshop for Care Workers" Study

The study aims to measure the empathic capacity of healthcare professionals belonging to the Alessandria Hospital, by applying validated measuring instruments, before and after a specific training intervention. The secondary objective is to assess how the training initiative impacts on subjects with a different attitude towards cultural participation.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Empathy; Well-Being, Psychological
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Training about storytelling and creative writing: 12 hours; Other: Training only about theoretical narrative medicine: 4 hours

Detailed Description

The aim of this project is to identify how a medical humanities intervention can act on the empathic capacity of carers through culture. One of the aims is to introduce an additional element to overcome the problems about language, prejudices, legitimisation by stakeholders who do not yet recognise the value and importance of projects promoting the relationship between culture, wellbeing and health. "Verba Curant" is aimed at generating cultural value, with the hope that it can unite the different professional fields involved and become the heritage of the community.

The project of the Alessandria Hospital Centre in collaboration with the Holden School intends to launch a series of actions aimed at promoting the beneficial impact of culture, in particular storytelling, on the caregivers and patients of the Alessandria Hospital in order to measure how much cultural enjoyment can impact on health literacy. It is planned to define a methodological tool useful for making care workers aware of the importance of culture and dialogue with patients, as well as being able to measure their degree of literacy. The tool will be the object of a widespread training action on care workers, which will also involve all the stakeholders involved in the transmission of health information to patients.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 175
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Italy
  • Piedmont
    • Alessandria, Piedmont, Italy, 15121
      • Azienda Ospedaliera SS Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Health professionals related to the Alessandria Hospital

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Training workshop with hands-on laboratory; Participants will undergo a training course for a total of 12 hours: 4 FAD + 8 in the laboratory. They will receive theoretical narrative medicine education with 4 hours of distance education and a practice course of storytelling and creative writing whit 8 hours of distance education in small groups, enabling discussion and interaction among participants.	Other: Training about storytelling and creative writing: 12 hours; Participants in training courses on creative writing and storytelling.
Placebo Comparator: Brief training course; Participants will undergo a training course for a total of 4 FAD hours. They will receive theoretical narrative medicine education with 4 hours of distance education.	Other: Training only about theoretical narrative medicine: 4 hours; Participants in training courses on only theoretical narrative medicine.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Empatic capacity	Assessment of the empathic capacity of health workers through the Jefferson of Empathy scale in two groups (treated and controls).	Before the intervention (Baseline/T0) and immediately after the intervention (Final/T1)
Wellbeing	Assessment of the wellbeing level of health workers through the PGWBI questionnaire in two groups (treated and controls).	Before the intervention (Baseline/T0) and immediately after the intervention (Final/T1)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Azienda Ospedaliera SS. Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo di Alessandria
• Collaborators: Compagnia di San Paolo; Scuola Holden Contemporary Humanities
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Marinella Bertolotti, Biologist, Azienda Ospedaliera SS Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 18, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 6, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): December 6, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 2, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 10, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): May 13, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 13, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 10, 2024
• Last Verified: May 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: ASO.IRFI.21.02

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No