Caring for the dying: nurses' experiences in hospice care.

This article reports on a phenomenological study of nurses' experiences of caring for dying patients in a Western Australian hospice. Data obtained from indepth interviews with nine experienced hospice nurses were analysed using Colaizzi's method. The five major themes that emerged from the data indicated that: nurses were transformed by the experience of caring for dying patients; the hospice context influenced caring; caring was embodied in nurse-patient interactions; caring extended to patients' families and nurses developed strategies to cope with their experience. The implications of the findings are that awareness of the effects of their caring activities on patients, their families and themselves is essential to nurses' maintenance of self and to their ability to enable patients to make choices. Suggestions are made for future research of the importance of caring contexts in both comforting patients and in preparing them for death.