The Exploratory Study Experience: Developing as a Researcher

This article presents the experience of the researcher during the exploratory study, within the scope of her research in a qualitative paradigm, using the Grounded Theory as a methodological approach, which aims to understand the process of nursing care to the end-of-life patient in the performing activity of living eating and drinking. While structuring the research project, it became important to explore the field of data collection (hospice care unit of a hospital in the Lisbon region) in order to achieve a contact with the reality (represented by the actors), allowing an overview and approximation of the phenomenon under study, the break with the investigator's prentices and the modification of these ideas as well as the construction of the researcher's acceptance by the actors (potential participants), and the decision making during the research course. The sharing of this experience as well as the critical reflections presented here, enabled the researcher to review the difficulties encountered and the strategies used to overcome them, to become aware of the lessons learned and to consolidate them. It is also hoped that the sharing of this experience will help other researchers in their path, allow them to perceive that the mishaps / difficulties of the course they are carrying out are common, that a lot of critical reflection is needed on this trajectory, eventually finding strategies for the problems they might face.