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Meanings and experiential outcomes of bodily care in a specialist palliative context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2014

Cecilia Håkanson  and
Joakim Öhlén
Cecilia Håkanson*
Affiliation:
Palliative Research Centre, Ersta University College and Ersta Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden Department of Neurobiology, Care Science and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Joakim Öhlén
Affiliation:
Palliative Research Centre, Ersta University College and Ersta Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden Institute of Health and Care Sciences and Centre for Person-Centred Care at the University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Cecilia Håkanson, Palliative Research Centre, Ersta University College and Ersta Hospital, P.O. Box 111 89, SE-100 61 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Objective:

The objective of this study was to enhance the depth of existing knowledge about meanings and experiential outcomes of bodily care in the context of an inpatient specialist palliative setting.

Method:

Interpretative phenomenology was chosen as the study sought to explore individuals' lived experiences related to bodily care. Nine participants (five women, four men) of various ages and with various metastasized cancers and bodily-care needs, all from one specialist palliative care ward, participated. Data were collected with repeated narrative interviews and supplementary participating observations. Analysis was informed by van Manen's approach.

Results:

The following meanings and experiential outcomes of bodily care were revealed by our study: maintaining and losing body capability, breaching borders of bodily integrity, being comforted and relieved in bodily-care situations, and being left in distress with unmet needs. These meanings overlap and shape the nature of each other and involve comforting and distressing experiences related to what can be described as conditional dimensions: the particular situation, one's own experiences of the body, and healthcare professionals' approaches.

Significance of results:

The results, based on specialist palliative care patients' experiences, outline the meanings and outcomes that relate to the quintessence and complexity of palliative care, deriving from dying persons' blend of both basic and symptom-oriented bodily-care needs. Moreover, the results outline how these two dimensions of care equally influence whether comfort and well-being are facilitated or not. Considering this, specialist palliative care may consider how to best integrate and acknowledge the value of skilled basic nursing care as part of and complementary to expertise in symptom relief during the trajectories of illness and dying.

Keywords

Bodily careBody declineInterpretive phenomenologyNursing carePalliative care
Type
Original Articles
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , June 2015 , pp. 625 - 633
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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