Stobie, Marjorie Michele.

The rising incidence of Acquired Immune Disease Syndrome (AIDS), the increased length of survival for persons living with AIDS (PLWAs), and the associated high costs, suggest that patients will want and need to be cared for at home by family caregivers. If caring is the essence of nursing (Leininger, 1988a; Watson, 1985), then research on caring will expand nurses' understanding of what caring means to the recipient: the patients and their primary caregivers. The purpose of this phenomenological study of primary caregivers of PLWAs was to discover the meaning of their being cared for by the nurse. Colaizzi's (1978) method of data analysis was used. The experience of being cared for by the nurse for caregivers of PLWAs was knowing that they were in a relationship, in this together with a nurse who was there for them; experiencing the nurse's way of being as a competent friend; and being helped to cope with the experience of being a caregiver through specific nursing actions. Implications for practice, education and research are discussed.