The aim of this study is to explore the structure of the lived experience of suffering. The purpose of this study was to expand nursing knowledge on the living experience of individual’s suffering following a typhoon in the Philippines.
Methods:
The theoretical framework, which guided this phenomenological study of suffering, was the humanbecoming paradigm. From that perspective the experience of a typhoon was associated with both silent and expressed traumatic loss. The structure of the living experience of suffering discovered in this investigation with the Parse research method contributes to nursing science. Suffering is seen in this paper is a universal experience which when better understood illuminates how nurses can be with persons, families and communities who suffer diverse situations. The phenomenon of suffering was explored using the Parse Research method. The participants in this study were ten volunteers (three women and seven men) over the age of 18, from the families and communities of Tacloban Province that was hit by one of the worst typhoons ever to hit the archipelago of the Philippines. The Parse research method, a phenomenological-hermeneutic method was used to guide this study and answer the question: What is the structure of the living experience of suffering? The Parse research method has three processes: 1) Dialogical engagement, which occurred as the researcher engaged with participants about their experiences related to the phenomenon under study, which was suffering. Dialogical engagement is not an interview, but an unstructured dialogue between the researcher and the participant focused on suffering; 2) Extraction Synthesis consisted in synthesizing a story of core ideas about suffering from each participant’s dialogue, abstracting the essences from the dialogue, abstracting the essences from the dialogue of each participant and moving the essences into the language of the researchers, and 3) Heuristic Interpretation consisted of interpreting the structure of the living experience of suffering at a higher level of abstraction through structural transposition and through conceptual integration which stated the structure of the living experience in the language of the humanbecoming theory. The researchers identified metaphorical emergings spoken by the participants during dialogical engagements to convey thoughts about living experiences of suffering.
Results:
The central finding of the study is: Suffering is penetrating disheartenment amid resoluteness, as pondering with diverse alliances surfaces with lingering glimmers of destruction. The findings are discussed in relation to the humanbecoming paradigm and related literature.
Conclusion:
The findings of this study, as evolved and interpreted in light of the Parse research method contribute new knowledge and understanding about the living experience of suffering. The findings did enhance the unique body of nursing knowledge base by expanding the humanbecoming school of thought in light of the humanbecoming paradigm.
Further study could be on feeling listened to, feeling respected, feeling understood, and feeling unburdened. In practice, knowledge gained from this study could influence health professionals to live the humanbecoming art with persons, families, and communities and bear witness to human universe suffering.