Knowing about and Caring for Persons Receiving Hospice Care: The Lived Experiences of Nurses Working in Hospice Agencies

Purpose: Knowing and caring by hospice nurses has received minimum research.   By illuminating hospice nurses’ experiences, end-of-life quality of care may be improved and nursing education enriched.  Failure by nurses to utilize all ways of knowing in the provision of nursing care can lead to practice limitation.  Caring, a value of nursing implies a relationship of knowing the patient.  The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of nurses working in hospice agencies regarding their knowing about and caring for persons receiving hospice care. 

Methods: The phenomenological approach was used to allow the nurse participants to describe their lived experiences of working in hospice agencies.  Through documentation of nurses’ lived experiences of knowing about and caring for, their work as hospice nurses became noticeable. After obtaining Institutional Review Board approval, interviews were conducted using semi-structured questions and probe statements and were recorded for verbatim transcription.  Field notes and journal entries were made for use during the analysis process.  After a second reading, themes and sub-themes were identified. 

Results: End-of-life care as nursing practice was confirmed. The needs of nurses practicing end-of-life care became discernable through hearing their experiences. Four themes and sixteen subthemes were identified.  Nurse participants verbalized their knowledge improved the caring behaviors demonstrated with the patients and family members.  The nurses were able to describe their methods of obtaining knowledge as it related to the biomedical process, the patient’s pattern and response to the illness, and discovery of who the patient was as a person.  Other descriptions were identification of the family members and the family role in support of the patient.  The acknowledgment of experience and the value it provided to being a better nurse was also explained.  The nurse participants were able to verbalize the uniqueness of professional nursing in the hospice agency.

Conclusion: It is important this distinctiveness for nursing be recognized by others in the healthcare community so nursing support is provided through education and workplace policies.