Making risk meaningful: developing caring relationships with AIDS patients

A qualitative study was conducted in order to understand how nurses cope with the risk of contagion while providing care to persons with AIDS (PWAs). Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 13 nurses who had cared for PWAs in an acute-care hospital in a western Canadian city. The data were analysed using the constant comparative methodology of grounded theory. The analysis revealed that caring for PWAs involved achieving a sense of control over uncertainty. One aspect of this process, making risk meaningful, centred on efforts to justify caring for PWAs in the face of risk. The purpose of this paper is to describe how nurses make risk meaningful. A sense of meaning was found to be related to three major factors: accepting the patient as a person who needs and deserves care, finding work enjoyable and worthwhile, and professional commitment to care for all patients. Attaining a sense of meaning led to a reappraisal of the risk situation as worthy of investment and provided the motivation to care for patients in spite of risk. The paper concludes with implications for practice and suggestions for further research.