Searching for knowledge and understanding while living with impending death—a phenomenological case study

Abstract

In this article, expression of the quest for knowledge and understanding while living with the threat of fatal cancer is explored. By means of a case study, recurrent narrative interviews and participant observations were performed with one 71-year-old man and the oncology nurse taking care of him. The data were analysed phenomenologically and the results disclose three paths during the illness trajectory at the end-of-life; the stable path, the turning point and the waiting. Existential uncertainty is managed in the stable path, while confronting existential uncertainty is characterized by the turning point, and there is a shift towards living existential certainty during the waiting. The significance of openness towards the intertwinement of the experiential and existential dimensions of living in end-of-life care is emphasized. Research into patients’ multidimensional learning at the end of life is needed in order to expand knowledge of how the patient makes sense of their situation particularly in relation to the information they receive from palliative care professionals.