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Phenomenologic nursing research is the exploration and description of the deepest meanings of some part of the human healthillness experience (Drew, 1999). Since nursing has an allegiance with those for whom we care, this method provides a particularly fruitful way to gain the insight necessary for sensitive and effective practice
Philosophical Origins
Every research method is grounded in certain philosophical beliefs about how we know or what the nature of reality is (Donalek, 2004). Phenomenologic research has its origins in a 20th century, European philosophical movement. Oiler-Boyd (2001) described some of the movement's common beliefs: "Perception is original awareness of the appearance of phenomena in experience. It is defined as access to truth, the foundation of all knowledge. Perception gives one access to experience of the world as it is given prior to any analysis of it. Phenomenology recognizes that meanings are given in perception and modified in analysis..." (pp. 96-97).
These philosophers frequently understood their work as "an effort to get beneath or behind subjective experience to reveal the genuine, objective nature of things" (Schwandt, 2002, p. 192). This position differs from that of phenomenologic nursing researchers, a distinction often missed in the literature. Phenomenologic nurse researchers do not focus on the "objective nature of things" but on the subjective experience as a means to seek understanding of the life-world of human beings. Nurse researchers adopt philosophical phenomenology's intense exploration of perception in order to achieve understanding. They are committed to a belief in the intrinsic value of the subjective experience of every human being (Cohen, Kahn, & Steeves, 2000).
Phenomenologic Research
Despite real differences within the phenomenologic...