© FoNS 2013 Internaional Pracice Development Journal 3 (1) [4] htp://www.fons.org/library/journal.aspx 1 ORIGINAL PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH Developing person-centred care through the use of autobiography Diana Jeferies*, Debbie Horsfall *Corresponding author: School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Western Sydney. Email: d.jeferies@uws.edu.au Submited for publicaion: 10th December 2012 Accepted for publicaion: 28th March 2013 Abstract Background: Postnatal psychosis is a serious psychiatric emergency that can have tragic consequences for the mother and child if the symptoms are not recognised early. An autobiographical account of this condiion gives clinicians and researchers a unique opportunity to explore how a paient may view their episode of postnatal psychosis, and how when this account is interpreted through a biomedical lens, new person-centred treatment possibiliies can be developed. Aim: This paper aims to demonstrate how to understand a woman’s lived experience of postnatal psychosis by examining an autobiographical account of the condiion, found in The Book of Margery Kempe. Research design: A qualitaive research design based on a textual analysis approach was used. Methods: The text was read against the domains of the common-sense model of illness (idenity, cause, consequence, control-treatment, control-personal, coherence and emoional representaion). Speciic extracts were categorised into each domain and read closely to determine how a paient’s account of their illness can be interpreted usefully for healthcare plans. Results: The autobiographical account of postnatal psychosis gives fresh insights into how paients reconstruct the condiion from memory and what meaning they may atribute to the cause, progression, treatment and outcome of the illness. Conclusions and implicaions for pracice: • Autobiographical accounts of a patient’s lived experience of illness can be powerful educational tools that healthcare professionals can use to develop a person-centred approach to treatment • Autobiography demonstrates how not listening to a patient can have a devastating effect on the treatment a patient receives • If researchers and clinicians come to understand how the patient makes meaning of their illness, treatment and care plans can take a more individualised and person-centred approach that could promote positive health outcomes and greater patient satisfaction Keywords: Person-centred care, autobiography, relecion, textual analysis, paient’s voice, puerperal psychosis Introduction The concept of person-centred care asks the healthcare professional to work in partnership with the paient to develop care and treatment plans based on the paient’s needs and wants (Berwick, 2009). This approach challenges healthcare professionals to consult the paient because they can no longer assume they know what care the paient requires (McCabe, 2004). It entails the development of communicaion strategies in healthcare that enable the professional to perceive the paient as a person,