Involvement of relatives in care of the dying in different care cultures: development of a theoretical understanding.

A prerequisite for the staff to be able to guide relatives through the dying trajectory is that the staff members know what the relative wants and can do. The aim of this study was threefold: (a) to identify and categorize family members' involvement in the care of a dying relative, (b) to develop a theoretical understanding of their involvement, and (c) to discuss the congruence or incongruence between the empirical results and key concepts in Swanson's and Watson's theories of caring. The results show that the relatives' involvement could be classified into three categories: to know, to be, and to do. Good correspondence was found between these three categories and key concepts in Swanson's and Watson's theories of caring.