Patients' Experiences in Inviting Healthcare Persons Into Caring Relationships: A Thematic Analysis

This study explored patients' experiences in inviting healthcare persons into the caring relationship.

Healthcare persons (i.e., physicians and nurses in this study) are usually responsible for inviting patients into caring relationships. Limited research has been published about patients who actively initiate relationships with healthcare persons, and their invitations are sometimes overlooked.

A qualitative approach was applied. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 20 adult patients in outpatient care between January and April 2023 and analysed with inductive thematic analysis.

Patients initially invited healthcare persons into the caring relationships. The themes are (1) patients tried to contact healthcare persons in a human-to-human way with polite small talk and discussion; (2) patients advocated for themselves and insisted on being heard if their suffering was not seen and understood; (3) patients strongly expressed their suffering and deep worries about wanting to be seen and understood and (4) patients experienced having their suffering seen and understood.

Patients' invitation can be interpreted as a patient's attempt to bring healthcare persons to a closer understanding of patients' suffering. Patients' invitation activity levels with healthcare persons differed based on how their first invitations were attended to or heard. Hearing a patient's invitation is an ethical challenge to practicing healthcare persons because even silent invitations should be heard, and more research is needed concerning healthcare persons in this area. More research is also needed on patients' invitations in different life and health situations; research is equally needed about patients' experiences of healthcare persons' invitations and how healthcare persons' invitations influence patients' dignity.