This hermeneutical inquiry was aimed at understanding the experience of women with advanced uterine cancer and providing sociocultural data on hospice nursing for these Korean women. We adopted hermeneutic phenomenological approach of van Manen. The research question was “What do women with advanced uterine cancer experience in their life?”.

The data for this paper came from interviews with 11 participants between February, 2000 and May, 2001 and reviews of secondary text of essay and drama, poet, memorandum. Each informant was interviewed three or more times for 30 min.-2 hours. In the process of analysis we did reflective thinking and used line-by-line and highlighting analysis techniques.

The substantial themes of illness experience of women in advanced uterine cancer were ‘Endless suffering’, ‘In the midst of chaos and darkness,’ ‘on the wish of new possibility’, ‘finding new transformed self.

Women with Advanced uterine cancer suffer with complex problems and wonder in the midst of chaos and darkness, but they find a new transformed self by the wish of new possibility and experience human becoming.

The purpose of this study is to explore college women's views of women for forming an upright sex role identity and sex values.

The data were collected through in-depth interviews of 10 college women on Jeju Island from February 2002 to March 2002. The interviews were conducted by the writer of this thesis. Each interview lasted for about 45 minutes. The data were analyzed by the Giorgi method.

Five main meanings were identified : 1) unfairness 2) majesty 3) mothering 4) womenishness 5) backward in capacity. In other words, women's roles are to look after their family and to take care of household affairs. Women should be beautiful and have womenish traits. Women are less intelligent than men. Women are dependent on men though they suffer from unfairness. This study presents an evidence that the traditional sex-role attitudes still prevail.

In order to form an upright sex role identity and sex values, institutional programs in the society and individual efforts are needed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the meaning and essence of suicide for elderly people who had previously attempted suicide as an older person.

Giorgi's descriptive phenomenology was used for analysis. The researchers carried out in-depth interviews, recordings and memos individually with four elders. The elders were individuals who had attempted suicide sometime in the past 5 yr. They were interviewed from 5 to 10 times using open-ended questions and a semi-structural format. Demographic data were also collected.

The meaning of suicide before a suicide attempt in older people had four core components: conflict with family, powerlessness and despair in their life with a drop in self-esteem, using internal and external resources to resolve their troubles and awareness of imminent crisis.

These results of this study will increase understanding of suicide in older people by defining their subjective experience of suicide attempts and applying grounded data in the development of programs that provide concrete intervention strategies to prevent suicide in elderly people.

This study was done to uncover the nature of hope experienced by clients with chronic schizophrenia.

A phenomenological approach developed by Van Manen was adopted. Data was collected from intensive interviews on 7 clients with chronic schizophrenia and the expatients' biographies and arts. A phenomenological reflection was done in terms of the four life world existentials.

Corporeality: Perceiving the body feeling better, proudness of self, accepting their own ill body and transcending the limitation of the body, expressing self, and staying within the boundary of a healthy body were disclosed as the body's experience of hope. Spatiality :A place with safety, freedom, peace, and sharing was the space of hope. Temporality :The essential experience of time with hope was the continuity of moving forward amid cycling and moments being filled up with something. Relationality : Connecting with someone, having someone who is dependable, understandable and exchanging interest and love were identified as the relationships of hope with others.

The results of this study show that chronic schizophrenic patients always strive hard to keep hope and they really need someone who can support them.