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Being a palliative care nurse in an academic hospital: a qualitative study about nurses' perceptions of palliative care nursing
Author(s) -
Georges JeanJacques,
Grypdonck Mieke,
De Casterle Bernadette Dierckx
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of clinical nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1365-2702
pISSN - 0962-1067
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2702.2002.00654.x
Subject(s) - nursing , palliative care , compassion , qualitative research , meaning (existential) , medicine , perception , psychology , sociology , social science , neuroscience , political science , law , psychotherapist
Summary • The original philosophy of palliative care emphasizes the importance of the integration of compassion and medical science. The meaning palliative care nurses assign to their relationships with patients has been described in several studies. • This qualitative research was undertaken in order to elicit the way nurses working on a palliative care ward in an academic hospital perceive their role and gain insight into the problems they encounter. • The findings present two different perceptions held by nurses about the nature of their work. The first, the more prominent, is ‘striving to adopt a well‐organized and purposeful approach as a nurse on an academic ward’; the second is ‘striving to enhance the well‐being of the patient’. • Nurses should be supported in the development of their palliative care approach and be assisted in reflecting on their practice in terms of a model of ‘reflective practice’ and in the development of ‘moral imagination’.