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Aim. The aim of this paper is to present a hermeneutic phenomenological study illuminating patients’ existential situation prior to colorectal surgery. The intention was also to explore the value of the encounter between patient and nurse. Background. Patients waiting for major surgery experience multifarious reactions. Emotions of anxiety, fears of the unknown, anaesthesia, cancer diagnosis and death can arise. Several earlier studies have reported the importance of information, coping strategies and the need to reduce anxiety and stress in relation to surgery. However, there is a lack of studies focusing on patients’ existential situation in the preoperative phase. Methods. Conversational interviews were conducted with 28 patients 1 week before their surgery during autumn 2002. Analysis of the data was influenced by van Manen's existential themes: lived space/spatiality, lived body/corporeality, lived time/temporality and lived relation/relationality. Findings. Participants expressed either hope of increased spatiality or fear of restricted spatiality, according to whether they had a benign or malign diagnosis. Statements about lived time were also related to the diagnosis. Patients waiting for surgery for a benign diagnosis could use the time to relax and gather energy, while malignancy gave them high levels of anxiety and stress. Lived body experiences showed the ambivalence felt in entrusting one's body to professionals. Statements about lived relations drew attention to the need for considerate caregivers to enhance feelings of security and continuity. Conclusion. The existential situation of patients in a preoperative context was shown to be a state of uncertainty with regard to lived space, body, time and relation. The significance of meeting and talking to the nurse did not appear in the statements. The nurse was invisible. If nurses were to employ the existential themes proposed by van Manen in preoperative encounter with patients, their need for care might be more clearly identified and affirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

skott c & eriksson a (2005) Journal of Clinical Nursing 14, 916–921 Clinical caring – the diary of a nurse The aim of this study was to explore the content of individual acts of nursing care and to discuss how these context-specific acts relate to the concept of caring. The point of departure was a diary kept by a nurse on an oncology ward over a period of six months. Hermeneutic interpretation, including content analysis of verb phrases, was carried out to inspire reflection and discussion rather than to generalize. The verbs that occurred in the diary text represented three categories of acts: physical care, speech and reflection. The diary text expresses the carer's acts as situated in a specific space and time through her presence, communication and reflection. The absence of bodies in this text points to the discourse of nursing as subjected to dualism and to the medical rules of knowledge. Caring emerges as experience-near action that through history is connected to situated knowledges, actual discourse and universal human condition. This study demonstrated that caring acts are situated and conditioned and that they should therefore be researched in relation to the carers’ acts and thoughts. This confirms the need for cooperation between researchers and clinical nurses in the quest of deepening our understanding of caring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to discuss narration of ethical themes in nursing care. The text represents part of the findings of an ethnographic study aimed at description of everyday work on an oncology ward. Nurses on this ward are constantly involved in ethical care issues and narratives are told to share experiences. Of vital importance in ethical decision making is the perpetual creation of a mediating moral world constituted by daily experience. The need for making space in nursing for a continual learning conversation is expressed and in this I include writings of nursing theorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]