Caring

The purpose of the study was to come to understand the experience of a caring interaction between a single mother and the father of the baby. A qualitative study from a phenomenological perspective was used, with eleven participants being interviewed. Significant statements from the interviews were analyzed according to the four steps developed by Giorgi (1985). A description of the meaningful experience was obtained which includes the common themes of caring and non-caring. The themes and the implications for nursing practice are discussed.

This research explored the client's experience of nursing as the promotion of well-being. The question guiding the study was: What is the meaning of nursing as the promotion of well-being? Using a phenomenological-hermeneutical approach, eight participants described their experiences of the phenomenon. Three metathemes emerged and expressed nursing as the promotion of well-being: (1) Being There Conveys a Willingness to Relate; (2) Being With Enables the Feeling of Comfort; and (3) Being in Tune While Creating the Future. Further analysis led to the apprehension of a unity of meaning: An Emancipating Togetherness--The Creation of a Caring Synchrony that Empowers a New Meaning for Living. The metaphor, A Conspiracy of Caring, conveys a theory of the meaning of nursing as the promotion of well-being.

The problem of the study was to understand the experience of being cared for by a nurse during labor and delivery. The review of literature for the study examined research focusing on adolescents in labor and delivery, caring and adolescent pregnancy and caring from current nursing literature perspective. Recalled labor and delivery experiences were analyzed phenomenologically in order to extract the meaning of the experience. Five recently delivered primiparous mothers were interviewed. Interviews followed guidelines designed to elicit descriptions of nurse caring. Interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. Data were reduced through a search for themes, and analyzed using guidelines of Colaizzi (1978). The findings were discussed with four of the participants and they all agreed that their perceptions of the experience had been described. Results of the study produced an exhaustive description and fundamental structure of nurse caring.

The purpose of this study was to describe how nurses in middle-management positions rate caring attributes of nursing staff. A convenience sample of 99 nurses from three acute-care hospitals was asked to rate caring attributes of nursing staff using the Nyberg Caring Assessment Scale, a 20 item 5-point Likert scale instrument. Fifty-nine nurses in the sample volunteered to participate in the study. Participants rated the attribute communicating a helping, trusting attitude toward others as extremely important, and the attribute consider relationships before rules as somewhat important. The remaining eighteen items were rated very important caring attributes to be exhibited by nursing staff in relations with patients and others in acute-care facilities. The study adds to the literature on caring and contributes to the nursing profession by expanding information about caring-based practice.

This is a phenomenological research study of the adolescent's experience of being accepted by a nurse. Six adolescents were selected who acknowledged and articulated their experience of being accepted by a nurse. The conceptual framework is derived from Paterson and Zderad's (1988) Humanistic Theory of Nursing. van Manen's (1984) approach to phenomenology was used to guide this inquiry. Data were generated using exploratory, in-depth, face-to-face interviews. The adolescent's experience of being accepted by a nurse is expressed by three metathemes: (1) the nurse is a friend; (2) the nurse's caring helps the adolescent feel better; and (3) the adolescent feels comfortable with the nurse. The implications of acceptance for nursing education, practice, and research are discussed.

The purpose of this phenomenological research was to capture the experience of caring in the lived world of the nurse managers. Interviews with six nurse managers were utilized to generate data and then transcribed into text. The researcher's analysis of the data followed the phenomenological method as interpreted by Ray. Essential themes of growth, listening, frustration, intuition, support, and receiving of gifts were described by participants. Variant themes of touch, humor, flexibility, counseling, limitations, and competence also emerged. Interpretive themes of nurses' way of being, reciprocal caring, and caring moment as transcendence unfolded. A metatheme of energy emerged from further analysis. Deeper reflection and intuition afforded the researcher the opportunity to grasp the unity of meaning as a metaphorical snowflake and poetic expression.

Concepts create our language and shape our world. Clarifying concepts will empower nurses to facilitate the changes needed in the future. Rodgers' (1989) evolutionary method of concept analysis was used to clarify the meaning of empower. This method was further developed to be congruent with the new processual paradigm foundational for this study. In order to examine the concept, a systematic random sample of 30 articles from the periodic literature of five disciplines was used (nursing, sociology, psychology, education, and business). Through a reflective analytic process twenty-nine attributes of the concept were identified and gathered into the five themes representing the concept. Two metathemes were identified, one for the concept and one for the context of the concept. To give, share, and/or have the ability to fully participate in life situations and experience well-being in the process is the definition of empower, as it emerged in the study.

Nursing researchers studying the concept of caring in nursing have identified patient teaching as a valued nurse caring behavior. However, no research has been conducted that examines patient teaching as an expression of caring. The purpose of this study was to examine and describe the patient perspective of caring expressed by nurses through patient teaching. Twelve patients in a hospital setting shared their thoughts and feelings about caring expressed by nurses through 'explaining', as the participants preferred to call 'teaching,' during open-ended tape-recorded interviews or in writing. A qualitative descriptive content analysis method was used to analyze the descriptions. Twenty-six subcategories that emerged from the coded data were grouped into four broad categories defined as: Nurse's Way of Being; Nurse's Doing For Patient; Nurse's Being With Patient; and Nurse's Caring Affects Patient.

This research is a qualitative study using the phenomenological method to gain insight into the meaning of caring for the patient. Many nurse leaders have described caring as the essence of nursing (Benner & Wrubel, 1989,; Leininger, 1981, 1984a, 1988; Watson, 1985a, 1988b). The purpose of the study was to address the meaning of caring from the patient's perspective. The specific phenomenological method used was based on the work of Max van Manen (1984). A purposive sample of 8 adults, 6 women and 2 men, in an acute care setting was selected. An unstructured interview technique was used. Through structured reflection the process of caring emerged as themes. These included: nurse's knowledge, nurse's presence, involvement and commitment. Expressions of caring emerged as subthemes. The subthemes included: decision making, competent clinical skills, nurse's true presence, nurse's availability, accepting, understanding, helping and informing. A model of caring from the patient's perspective was developed.

The purpose of this study was to compare empathy levels of registered nurses based on three different types of academic preparation: associate degree (two-year program), diploma (three-year program), or baccalaureate degree (four-year program). The relationship of empathy to age, marital status, parental status, clinical experience, and length of time in practice was also investigated. Subjects (n = 122) for the study were registered nurses working at two acute care health settings in the southeast metropolitan area of Florida. Two instruments were used: (a) Empathy Construct Rating Scale (ECRS), and (b) a demographic information questionnaire. The ECRS was chosen because of its proven construct validity and specificity to nursing (LaMonica, 1981). The demographic questionnaire assisted the investigator to determine any relationship between level of empathy and the aforementioned variables. A regression analysis was performed first to determine any relationship between empathy levels of registered nurses and the demographic variables. No significant relationship was found between professional preparation and the demographic variables. A one-way analysis (ANOVA) was performed to assess the strength and direction of the relationship between academic preparation and empathy. Using 0.05 level of significance as the criterion, statistical analysis revealed there was no relationship between registered nurses' academic preparation and level of empathy.