[The illness experience of women in advanced uterine cancer]

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.