SPIRITUALITY OF WOMEN LIVING WITH BREAST CANCER IN TAIWAN: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY (ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE).
Contributors: University of Texas at Austin.
Published: 1996
Number of pages: 251
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Psychology, Physiological.
Description: The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate and describe spirituality as the lived experience of women with breast cancer in Taiwan. The pre-conceived spirituality was ever-present in the women and became apparent as each one awakened in an alternate reality to deal with her disease. The study was conducted in a community in central Taiwan. Fifteen adult women with breast cancer, who indicated their current state of well-being and were able to speak Mandarin, were recruited. A hermeneutical, phenomenological research methodology was employed to guide the study. Interviews were used to explore the structure of the human lifeworld of women with breast cancer. The interviews were then transcribed into narrative protocol for thematic analysis.

Four main themes and 12 subthemes, which were conceptualized under the metatheme hsin, emerged as characteristic of the current lifeworlds of the study participants. The four main themes are living reality, creating meaning, connectedness, and transcendence. The 12 subthemes include living with encounters, taking full responsibility, appreciation of life, people, and beloved things, purpose and meaning in life, finding alternative ways of life/restructuring life perspectives, religion/karma/fate, relationships, power, suffering, liberation, opening to life and death, and healing experiences.

Interpretation of the narratives of the participants revealed that spirituality is a journey and an unidirectionally evolving process in which the participants experienced different levels of wholeness and integrations. The analysis also indicated that spirituality in Taiwan should be understood in terms of its cultural context. New meanings that were developed in the empirical findings were integrated with the Chinese concept of Complete Reality Taoism. A synoptic model for spirituality in Taiwan in the study was proposed.

The findings of the study suggest that nursing care for spirituality varies with cultural context, the extent to which nurses are concerned with their clients' well-being, and the effects of the interaction between prevailing traditional values and the values of the modern-day, fast-changing, pan-cultural environment. The findings also imply that nurses should attend to each client as a unique person, focus on "here and now" encounters, and help the client to transform and evolve to a higher plane of wholeness and integrations, as well as nurture and support their own spirituality to be available as a healing resource to others.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-06, Section: B, page: 3652.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 1996.

School code: 0227.