Palliative Care as the Driving Force for Providing Psychological Comfort to Patients with Cancer: A Hermeneutic Study

Background Palliative care is an important part of effective cancer care Objectives The purpose of our study was to explore the lived experiences of nurses providing psychological palliative care for cancer patients in Iran. Methods A hermeneutic phenomenological study was performed. We interviewed 11 oncology nurses to understand their lived experiences in cancer wards about psychological palliative care. We employed a sevenstage process of data analysis. Results One constitutive pattern ‘palliative care as the driving force for providing psychological comfort to patients with cancer’ and three associated themes, namely ‘stress management’, ‘empathetic behavior’, and ‘allembracing outlook’, were identified. Conclusions The findings present better understanding of the lived experiences of oncology nurses in Iran regarding the phenomena under study.