Human Caring Perspectives of Care Meanings and Expressions in a Nigerian Cancer Care Setting

Caring in Africa is often viewed from sociopolitical and humanity perspectives.

The aim of this study was to investigate the meanings and expressions of caring from the narratives of persons living with cancer and their nurses.

This study adopted a qualitative ethnonursing methodology. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the key participants, who were grouped into 7 nurses and 6 patients. General participants included 4 physicians, 3 ward assistants, and 6 patients' relatives. Interviews of participants were digitally audio-taped and then transcribed verbatim. Data analysis in this study followed the phases of ethnonursing data analysis enabler and was conducted using NVivo 14 software. Data categories were reviewed and sorted to discover recurrent patterns within the data.

Caring was seen as a social practice that is both transactional and transformational. Six thematic patterns emerged: restoring hope, reaching out to the inner lifeworlds of the patients, mutual empathy, going the extra mile, compassionate presence, and being human/having a sense of human connection. The study revealed that there are discernible patterns in care needs and expectations, even though each cancer patient is unique in his or her specific care needs and expectations.

Caring in this study constituted a variety of meanings, and human caring was demonstrated and practiced interpersonally. Hence, there is evidence of living caring in everyday life, in observable ways.

Nurses should enhance both their own and the patient's sense of personal meaning in the caring partnership to enable them to be present in concrete unique nursing situations with the suffering human being.