“New types of stories”: a narrative view of good nursing care of severely ill adult patients suffering an eating disorder

TL;DR

This study explores how nurses describe providing good care to adults with severe eating disorders, highlighting the importance of virtues and professional judgment.

Contribution

The study introduces a narrative approach to understanding nursing care through the lens of virtue ethics and practical wisdom.

Findings

Nurses use virtues and professional judgment alongside scientific knowledge in caring for patients with eating disorders.

Narratives reveal how nurses take risks and apply practical wisdom in their care practices.

Stories from nurses can enrich clinical practice and research by complementing medical and diagnostic approaches.

Abstract

This study is based on narratives about good nursing care from nurses with experience of working with adult patients with a severe eating disorder. Its aim is to explore and elaborate on nurses` stories. What do nurses highlight as being good nursing practice, and what can we learn from their accounts of good nursing care for people with a serious eating disorder?

Riessman’s thematic narrative approach was chosen. Twelve nurses were interviewed individually and asked to reflect on stories from their nursing practice in which they had performed good nursing care. Four stories from these interviews were selected for this article. These four stories were analysed deductively, based on virtue ethics. The stories were worked on one at a time and then considered and analysed together toidentify differences and similarities.

The analysis shows how nurses, in addition to scientific knowledge and experience, apply virtues, professional judgement and phronetic knowledge, and take risks in the nursing of patients with a severe eating disorder.

Stories of nurses are needed to complement the medical, psychological and diagnostic language used in the treatment of eating disorder patients and will further enrich both clinical practice and research.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40337-025-01345-4.

This study is based on narratives about good nursing care from nurses with experience of working with adult patients with a severe eating disorder. Its aim is to explore and elaborate on nurses` stories. What do nurses highlight as being good nursing practice, and what can we learn from their accounts of good nursing care for people with a serious eating disorder? The results are discussed in the light of virtue ethics. The study sheds light on how nurses, in addition to scientific knowledge and experience, apply virtues, professional judgement and practical wisdom, and take risks in the nursing of patients with a severe eating disorder.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40337-025-01345-4.