SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Digit. Health
Sec. Health Communications and Behavior Change
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1607897
The health-promoting experiences of storytellers participating in group-based digital storytelling workshops: A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies
Provisionally accepted- 1Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland
- 2Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
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Objective This meta-synthesis aimed to synthesize qualitative evidence, using the framework analysis method, to explore how participating in a digital storytelling workshop shapes the storytellers' health attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors. Methods We conducted a meta-synthesis to generate descriptive and analytic themes. We searched Medline, CINHAL, SocIndex, Embase, PsycINFO, SciELO, Academic Search Ultimate, Scopus, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and LIVIVO and selected two of the included studies as index papers to develop the initial framework. We identified each framework component and refined it iteratively as new themes were generated during the analysis of other studies. We created or allocated new themes to existing categories using the constant comparative approach. If a new theme was identified, we assigned a name and compared it with those included in the initial framework [72]. We then organized and integrated these descriptive themes into analytic themes and used the GRADE-CERQual approach to assess our confidence in the review findings. Results We included 25 qualitative studies from six countries representing the experiences of 629 storytellers. The meta-synthesis of the data from the included studies generated 12 descriptive themes (review findings), of which nine were graded with moderate confidence, indicating that these review findings are likely a reasonable representation of the storytellers' health-promoting experiences. Two themes were graded with high confidence and a single theme with low confidence, making them highly likely or possibly a reasonable representation of the storytellers' experiences, respectively. From these descriptive themes, we derived four analytical themes: - "Re-Storying Lived Experience," "The Ripple Effect Of Digital Storytelling," "Investing And Processing Emotions," and "Owning The Script." Storytellers experience digital storytelling workshops as a safe space where they reframe the narratives around their health experiences. This re-storying process extends storytellers' understanding of their health experiences, affords them a sense of agency and control, and motivates them to use their stories to support others. Conclusion We found evidence that digital storytelling enables storytellers to reflect and emotionally engage with the narratives shared in the co-construction of digital stories, resulting in a narrative shift that is likely to be experienced as health-promoting.
Keywords: digital storytelling, Storytelling, Digital narrative, Storyteller, digital stories, meta-synthesis, framework analysis, Systematic review
Received: 16 Jul 2025; Accepted: 06 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dominguez Hernandez, Brieskorn, Leutenegger, Krahl, Eastham and Limmer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jonathan Dominguez Hernandez, domg@zhaw.ch
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