Hope: future imagined reality. The meaning of hope as described by a group of healthy Pentecostalists

Abstract

A holistic health care approach involves body, mind and spirit. Religiosity, spirituality and hope, as a part of the spiritual dimension, are often linked to various health-related outcomes such as physical health, spiritual well-being and experienced meaning in life. A person's outlook on life and the experience of hope are essential issues in all health care. The purpose of this paper is to describe the meaning of hope as expressed by a group of healthy adult Pentecostalists (n = 15). Using narratives, the ultimate hope was described as life after death, the future imagined reality, promised by God. Hope was strengthened by reading the Bible and saying prayers, through experienced meetings with God and shared values. Hope was quite stable but sometimes God was experienced as being at a distance, which resulted in a sense of alienation. Hope unconnected to Christian belief was of no significant importance to the interviewees.

A Systematic Review of the Congruence Between People's Needs and Nurses' Interventions for Supporting Hope

“…Research to understand hope in cultures outside of the mainstream United States culture is also needed. (4) Research has shown the impact that levels of hope/ hopelessness can have on health. Herth (1989[19]) studied the relationship between hope and coping.…”

Nurse religiosity and end-of-life care

“…These results further support the concept of religiosity, suggesting there is considerable consistency related to a definition of religiosity that includes (a) religious affiliation (e.g., Protestant, Catholic, Jewish), (b) religious beliefs (e.g., relationship with a higher power, believing in the religious scriptures of a belief system), and (c) religious activities (e.g., praying or church attendance; Kendler et al, 1997;Miller et al, 1997;Benzein et al, 1998;Oyama and Koenig, 1998;Baldacchino and Draper, 2001;Chen et al, 2004;Koenig et al, 2004). The differences found between perceived self-efficacy/allow to die and importance/allow to die with higher self-efficacy and importance scores for the 'all other' belief system group further supports the previous discussion regarding associations between higher religiosity and strong feelings about certain aspects of end of life.…”

Associations among awareness of prognosis, hopefulness, and coping in patients with advanced cancer participating in phase I clinical trials

“…Thus, overwhelmingly, patients in this study placed themselves into the most optimistic category provided by the instrument. While most authors assume that fostering hope is a worthwhile goal in cancer patients [2,3,4,20,22,23,28,29,32,34,37,38], no one has systematically examined how awareness of prognosis and hopefulness affect each other in ACPs.…”