Background: The aim of this article is to explore sources of hope for patients by using patients' narratives and perspectives on how they find hope when facing illness. Hope enables people to endure suffering and can be critical to how people cope with illness. Hope is not a singular phenomenon, so nurses need to understand how to support the patients' sources of hope.
Methods: We used a qualitatively descriptive design with qualitative content analysis. We examined reflective notes from 385 first-year nursing students after they had had a conversation with patients with disease experiences following Graneheim and Lundman's description of analysis. The conversation with the patients/persons was related to sources of hope and strength, who they turned to when they needed help, and if they were available. After the conversation, the students had to write a reflective log with a summary of the conversation.
Results: We found four categories that explained how patients found hope: (1) relational hope, (2) spiritual hope, (3) hope in nature and (4) hope in oneself. Most of the patients found hope in more than one of these categories.
Conclusion: It is important for nursing to have knowledge about patients' narratives about how they build and sustain hope during times of illness. Nursing can contribute to promoting hope and thus alleviating patients' suffering. The four categories in this study can serve as a guide for nurses to assess and support patients' hope and encourage them to find their strength through different sources.
Keywords: hope; lived experience; nurse-patient interaction; qualitative approaches; quality of life; textual analysis.
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