Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Constructing family identity close to death
Jönköping University, School of Health Science, HHJ, Dep. of Nursing Science. (Palliativt forskningscentrum, MeCaLL)
2013 (English)In: Open Journal of Nursing, ISSN 2162-5336, E-ISSN 2162-5344, Vol. 3, no 5, p. 379-388Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Daily life close to death involves physical, psychological, and social strain, exposing patients and their family members to major transitions affecting relational patterns and identity. For the individual family member, this often means sharing life with a changing person in a changing relationship, disrupting both individual identity and family identity. Our aim was to deepen the understanding of individual experiences that are important in constructing family identity close to death at home. We performed a secondary analysis of qualitative data collected through 40 interviews with persons with life-threatening illness and the family members who shared everyday life with them. The analysis resulted in interpretive descriptions which provided three patterns important for creating family identity, which we here call “we-ness” close to death. The patterns were: being an existential person, being an extension of the other, and being together in existential loneliness. Together, these three patterns seemed to play a part in the construction of family identity; we-ness, close to death. One important finding was the tension between the search for togetherness in “we-ness” while dealing with an existential loneliness, which seemed to capture an essential aspect of being a family of which one member is dying.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2013. Vol. 3, no 5, p. 379-388
Keywords [en]
dying, identity, family, palliative care, secondary analysis
National Category
Nursing
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-21988DOI: 10.4236/ojn.2013.35051OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-21988DiVA, id: diva2:649840
Available from: 2013-09-19 Created: 2013-09-19 Last updated: 2025-10-13Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Sandberg, Jonas

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Sandberg, Jonas
By organisation
HHJ, Dep. of Nursing Science
In the same journal
Open Journal of Nursing
Nursing

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 486 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf