Lived Experience of Spirituality in Taiwanese Women with Breast Cancer

Abstract

This study explored spirituality as a lived experience through in-depth, face-to-face interviews of 15 Taiwanese women with breast cancer. A Phenomenological research method was employed to guide the study. Four main themes and 12 subthemes, conceptualized under a meta-theme of hsin, emerged as characteristic of the current “lifeworlds” of the study participants. Interpretation of the findings revealed that spirituality is a journey and a unidirectional evolving process that the participants experienced at different levels of wholeness and integration. Spirituality in Taiwan not only must be seen as metaphysics but also should be approached in the cultural context of patients. Nurses should attend to each patient as a unique person, focus on “here-and-now” encounters, and help their patients transform and evolve to a higher plane of wholeness and integration. Nurses should, as well, nurture and support their own spirituality to be available healing resources for others.

Spirituality in Childbearing Women

“…Spirituality has been studied in Appalachian women (Burkhardt, 1994); battered women (Gillum, Sullivan, & Bybee, 2006;Humphreys, 2000); empowered women (Keene & Jenson, 1997); HIVpositive women (Sowell et al, 2000); older women (Learn, 1995); Hispanic women (Rojas, 1996); women with breast cancer (Chiu, 2000;ManningWalsh, 2005); and women with end-stage renal disease (Tanyi & Werner, 2008). …”

Conceptualisation of the spiritual life dimension: A personal and proffessional leadership perspective

“…Wholeness is a sense of one's own integrity (Chiu, 2000;Maddox, 2000;Zohar & Marshall, 2000, p. 190). An authentic life results in a sense of wholeness, "a oneness with who we are and an awareness of how we fit with our external environment" (King & Nicol, 1999).…”

Psychometric Evaluation of the Spanish and English Versions of the Spiritual Coping Strategies Scale

“…Spiritual coping strategies can help them adapt to their situation by reducing their psychological distress and improving their ability to cope (Dunn & Shelton, 2007). Spirituality as a coping strategy can help people to achieve a state of wholeness or equilibrium and promote healing (Chiu, Clark, & Daroszewski, 2000; Tuck, McCain, & Elswick, 2001; Woods & Ironson, 1999). If they hold and practice spiritual beliefs, individuals diagnosed with chronic and/ or terminal conditions and those dealing with death of a loved one are better able to cope with these situations, exhibit fewer depressive symptoms, and have a better overall health-related quality of life (Cotton et al, 2006; Meraviglia, 2004; Sowell et al, 2000).…”