[A phenomenological study of nurses' caring: the experience of stillbirth among Taiwanese women]

To understand how Taiwanese women experience nurses' caring care during perinatal bereavement, a phenomenological approach was conducted. A purposive sample of sixteen women participated in the study. All the subjects' interviews were tape recorded and then transcribed. The transcription of each subject's oral description of her nurses' caring experience was analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological methodology. Seven themes were derived from the analysis: understanding, being there, offering self, mastering situation, predicting consequences, providing choice and sharing experience. Data from this phenomenological study not only describe the essential structure of nurses' caring but can also sensitize health care providers to both the needs and concerns of stillbirth women.