Lived experience of spirituality in Taiwanese women with breast cancer

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.