The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of the family caregivers using a nursing home for their elderly family members.

Participants for this study were 1 man and 9 women caregivers. Data was collected through in-depth interviews from October, 2005 to April, 2006 and analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory methodology.

“Finding a way to live together” emerged as a core category and it reflected expanding consciousness allowing them to see each other in a more positive view. The basic social process of “finding a way to live together” includes 3 phases: 1) recognizing the problems, 2) finding solutions to the problems, and 3) accepting the changes in their surrounding. Lack of privacy, family troubles, extreme distress, and unavailable caregivers are reflected in the process of recognizing the problems. The process of finding solutions was making a decision, obtaining family agreement, choosing the best nursing home, and enduring the financial burden. Possible outcomes of the last phase include recovering peace of mind and continuing conflict.

Findings from this study offer suggestions for developing a strategy to help not only the elderly but also the family caregivers.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the experiences in the transplantation coordinators' practice.

Data was collected through a tape-recorded in-depth interview from nine participants who were transplantation coordinators of their hospitals. It was analyzed using the phenomenological method proposed by Colaizzi(1978).

From significant statements, six categories of themes were integrated into the essential structure of the experiences of transplantation coordinators. Six categories of themes were ‘ continue to be professional during dash this way and rush that’, ‘ burden due to persistent heavy work’, ‘ the uniqueness in family care of the brain-dead patients’, ‘ support of family and a professional group’, ‘ worthiness and achievement of the patients' recovery’, and ‘ establishment of self-confidence as a coordinator’.

Although the transplantation coordinators played various roles, they had a conflict in role identity due to poor working environments. The results of this study suggested that development of an educational program, an increase in understanding for the coordinators' role, and institutional support for better working conditions are needed to get professional acknowledgement for transplantation coordinators.

Despite many smoking cessation programs, many patients with CAD continue to smoke or re-smoke. The processes of change and self-change for smoking cessation is emphasized. The purpose of present study was to investigate decisional balances and processes of change according to stages of change for smoking cessation in the patients with CAD.

This descriptive study was performed using the self-reported questionnaires from 157 male patients with CAD who have smoking experiences. The questionnaires consisted of decisional balances toward smoking (pros/cons) and processes of change including 7 factors.

45.2% of the subjects had myocardial infarction and 54.8% for angina pectoris. Major stages of change were maintenance, contemplation, and precontemplation in 62%, 14%, and 18% respectively. The mean score of pros smoking was 31.07 and cons smoking was 32.52. The mean scores of processes of change were high in all 7 factors, especially in self determination. The pros smoking in precontemplation stage was significantly higher than those in other stages. Between contemplation and precontemplation stages, processes of change showed significant differences in stimulus control, self determination, information management, and dramatic relief.

This study suggests that decisional balances and processes of change are stage-specific. As this study, smoking cessation program in the patients with CAD must put priority on the patients group in precontemplation and contemplation stages, and stress self determination and dramatic relief.

The purpose of this study was to identified the male nurses' encounter in adapting themselves in the hospital settings dominated by the female nurses in number.

Data were collected through the in-depth interview of 16 male nurses and analysed through the grounded theory methodology.

The behaviors of male nurses for job-adaptation can be summarized as a series of struggles to consolidate their own ground. They have made tremendous efforts to hold their own ground in the nursing profession composed of a large numbers of female nurses, while they have experienced many difficulties and problems as minorities. They have struggled to adapt themselves professionally through efforts such as; challenging the social and professional barriers, identifying the job identity, empowering themselves through self-development and dedication, expanding their influence among colleagues. In spite of these efforts, they had the perception that nursing is not a lifelong occupation for them. Thus, they had tendency to find outlets of change to occupations.

A specific strategy is needed to provide an environment that is helpful for males in integrating into and adapting to the nursing profession.

Effective communication is an essential aspect of nursing care. This qualitative study was performed to analyze nurse-patient conversations about medication.

The nurse-patient dialogue was collected by video tape recording during the nurse's duty time in an internal medicine ward. One hundred seventy-eight episodes were extracted from the conversation. Using conversational analysis, the functional phases and patterns of dialogue sequence pertaining to medication were analyzed.

Conversations about medication were very brief dialogues, so 68.8% of the dialogue had a duration of less than 20 seconds. However, it was a systematic and comprehensive dialogue which had structures and sequential dialogue patterns. Four functional phases were explored: greeting, identifying the patient, medicating, finishing. The medicating phase was essential, in which the nurse gave the drug to the patient and provided information initiated by the nurse simultaneously. The patterns of the dialogue sequence represented were the nurse provided information first, and then, patients responded to the nurse as accepting, rejecting, raising an objection, or asking again later.

As the results of this study show, a nurse's role is important as an educator. For effective conversation about medication, the development of an educational program should be considered, which includes knowledge about medication and communication skills.

It is important to understand the nature of the identity through the live experiences of Home Care Nurse Practitioner(HCNP) because the role identity of a professional is constructed by continuous social interactions, This study aims to understand the construction of the role identity of HCNP.

Data was collected from 12 hospital based HCNPs. This study involved two focus group discussion sand four in-depth individual interviews. The main question was “what is the role of HCNP?” The debriefing notes and field notes were analyzed using consistent comparative data analysis method.

First, Home care (HC) is a small clinic. HCNP brings it to home to provide various services. Second, HC is the real nursing and HCNP is the ‘genuine’ nurse who actualizes the essence of nursing in practice. Third, HC is empowering activity to promote self-care ability of the patients and their caregivers. Forth, HC is like the dish-spinning required high-level mastery and HCNP is an expert who provides the most appropriate services to the patients.

HCNPs have the role identity as a highly qualified professional who delivers services from hospital to home, actualizes the essence of nursing in practice, empowers the patients and their caregivers to have self-efficacy to recover, and offers the most appropriate nursing care.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of recovery from disease in the patients doing a kind of Buddhist meditation, and to develop a grounded theory about meditation.

Data was collected by an in-depth interview using tape-recordings from sixteen participants doing meditation. The data was analyzed using the grounded theory method proposed by Strauss and Corbin(1998).

The core category was discovering the true self. The participants began to do meditation because of their disease. They experienced obstacles due to incomplete religious acceptance. However, their faith grew gradually based on religious experiences that were indescribable. Finally, they entirely trusted the inner healer, which is emphasized in meditation. The strategies that they used were self reflection and seeking help for accepting deep meditation. They were stabilized in physical, psychological and social daily living. The processes of discovering the true self were identified as entering religious discipline, embodying religious discipline, self-accomplishing religious faith, and recovering mind-body health.

This study provided the understanding of mind-body integration. Empirical research may be needed to prove scientifically the effects of meditation.