Nursing reality as reflected in nurses' poetry

In this discussion, the author has described a technique used in a pilot study where the research aim was to enhance understanding of nurses and their experiences--an understanding achieved from attention to nurses' expressions in poetry. There is a growing interest in qualitative approaches to the study of nursing phenomena and the development of nursing theory (Simms, 1981; Munhall, 1982; Oiler, 1982; Omery, 1983; Swanson and Chenitz, 1982). In fact, many of the techniques and strategies used by helping professionals to know their clients can be adapted in qualitative research procedures. For persons in the helping professions, a qualitative approach is consistent with the therapeutic process of coming to know a client. Human behavior is understood to be an expression of how individuals interpret their worlds. The task of the qualitative researcher is to capture this very process of interpretation in the subject's words, gestures, expressions, acts, and creations.