The blessing of giving: the importance of reciprocity to self-health care.

This qualitative study of reciprocity and self-health care demonstrated the importance of reciprocity in the lives of 20 elderly participants. Self-health care included actions centering around nutrition, exercise, health care monitoring, and psychospiritual activities. The importance of giving to others and the difficulty in accepting help should their functional capacity diminish create concern among our participants. Nursing interventions based on understanding reciprocity and helping caregivers create opportunities for the older person to reciprocate, despite limited physical resources, are discussed.