Quality of life: a phenomenological perspective on explanation, prediction, and understanding in nursing science

A Heideggerian phenomenological approach to explanation, prediction, and understanding in the study of health, illness, and disease is presented. The extremes of objectification and subjectivism as barriers to understanding illness and suffering are explored. It is argued that meaning terms are essential when studying practical activity and relational issues, and that a privileged position is not gained by developing structural analyses or power terms that get behind or beyond meaning. Hermeneutics, or interpretive methodology, is a holistic strategy because it seeks to study the person in the situation rather than isolating person variables and situation variables and then trying to put them back together. Paradigm cases, exemplars, and thematic analysis are described as interpretive and presentational strategies.