[Patient guidance during the hospitalization--patients' perceptions and experiences]

The aims of this study were to describe, firstly the perceptions and the experiences of the patients concerning the holistic guidance in a hospital, and secondly to describe their perceptions about how the guidance of the patients promoted patients' readinesses of self-care. Fifteen somatic and 10 psychiatric patients between 23 to 80 years of age participated in the study. The sample consisted of 12 men and 13 women. The data were collected by theme-interviews in three hospitals. The phenomenographic interpretive analysis was used for analysing the data. The psychiatric patients perceived the guidance as activating and developing the patient. The social management in the daily life was mainly emphasized in the guidance. They wished to discuss more about their feelings and their situation at the beginning and in the end of the nursing care in the hospital. The somatic patients regarded the guidance as informing and advising them how to observe their vital functions. They were dependent on the nursing experts during the hospitalization whereas the psychiatric patients thought they were more dependent when leaving the hospital. The somatic patients wished to discuss with nurses when they felt physically better. The psychiatric nursing emphasized the viewpoint of the human situation and the somatic the viewpoint of the organism. The guidance promoted the self-care readinesses of the patients when they handled their experiences of health and caring with nurses and when their own resources were used. The nurses need continuously to consider the ethical questions with which they could develop the guidance of the patients.