The meaning of hope from the perspective of Chinese advanced cancer patients in Hong Kong.

AIM

This article reports a study to examine the meaning of hope from the perspective of Chinese advanced cancer patients in Hong Kong.

METHODS

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of advanced cancer patients recruited from the palliative care unit of a local hospital. Data were saturated after 17 participants were interviewed. Qualitative content analysis was adopted to analyse the data.

FINDINGS

Hope as experienced by the participants was found to consist of five components: living a normal life, social support, actively letting go of control, reconciliation between life and death, and wellbeing of significant others.

CONCLUSIONS

While hope is related to the wellbeing of patients with advanced cancer, successful palliative care partly depends on an awareness of the importance of hope in the end-of-life context and cultural sensitivity to the meanings behind it from the patients' own perspective.