The meaning of hope in health and illness

Hope plays an important role in the illness experience, yet it is a difficult concept to articulate, given its complex intangible nature. To develop a model for capturing the personal meaning of hope in health and illness, I developed a questionnaire and distributed it to 550 healthy adults, adults with illness experience, and nurses. Major findings from this study suggest that people experience hope within three interconnected realms: personal spirit, risk, and authentic caring. This multidimensional framework provides a novel approach for understanding the complex experience of hope in health and illness.