Intertwining caring science, caring practice and caring education from a lifeworld perspective—two contextual examples

Abstract

This article describes how caring science can be a helpful foundation for caring practice and what kind of learning support that can enable the transformation of caring science into practice. The lifeworld approach is fundamental for both caring and learning. This will be illustrated in two examples from research that show the potential for promoting health and well-being as well as the learning process. One example is from a caring context and the other is from a learning context. In this article, learning and caring are understood as parallel processes. We emphasize that learning cannot be separated from life and thus caring and education is intertwined with caring science and life. The examples illustrate how an understanding of the intertwining can be fruitful in different contexts. The challenge is to implant a lifeworld-based approach on caring and learning that can lead to strategies that in a more profound way have the potential to strengthen the person's health and learning processes.

Students learning in clinical practice, supervised in pairs of students – a phenomenological study

“…Hörberg, Ozolins and Ekebergh [34] maintain that it is important to develop conditions where the students' lifeworld is the foundation in the learning process. The students' different fields of knowledge; caring science, practical skills and the lifeworld, which constitute the subjective and the lived knowledge, are important to interweave and integrate through reflection and are crucial for the creation of a whole.…”

“…Each student has to develop individually and gain support individually even though they are supervised in pairs. Learning and life cannot be separated; caring and education are thus intertwined with caring sciences and life [34] . Students' learning is of the environment they are in, which includes both learning support and the learning environment they are placed in, which also means that students are of each other in "pairs of students" and of each other's learning.…”

Lifeworld-led learning takes place in the encounter between caring science and the lifeworld

“…The importance of reflection for students' learning has been expressed in previous studies [25,26] . Research within caring science didactics [6,8,27,28] has developed a reflective supervision model. The starting point for this supervision is the patient's narrative, which is penetrated and analysed by using caring science concepts such as; a patient perspective, wellbeing, suffering, caring relationship and so on, with the purpose of perceiving the patient's health condition and understanding the patient's world in a more profound way.…”

Living Within Limits: Unpleasant Experiences From the Perspective of Patients After Cardiac Surgery, a Content Analysis Study

“…The illness disturbs the body's access to the world and prevents the person from carrying out their natural daily life (15). Feeling tired and having no energy during the day, and being unable to handle daily living activities like taking a bath, buttoning up clothes and walking, were expressed by patients posteratively in Namazi's (9) study.…”

“…Having a clearer understanding of patients' experiences will be helpful to healthcare workers with respect to patients' care and education planning (9), and for meeting patients' needs more holistically. Caring science emphasizes the patient's experience and places more attention on the patient's everyday life from his/her perspective (15). A patient centered approach is characterized by emphasizing the importance of the personal meaning of the illness for the patient individually (12).…”