Putting spirituality on the agenda: hospice research findings on the 'ignored' dimension.

The notion of spirituality is central to hospice ideology and practice. Unfortunately, because of the modernist concerns with objectivity and measurement, this 'transcendent' dimension to hospice care has received little research attention. Dubbed the "ignored dimension," the importance of spirituality is acknowledged in the literature, but, to a significant degree, left off the research agenda. This discussion, situated in the findings of research completed on a Brisbane, community based, hospice service [Karuna Hospice Service], seeks to begin to address such an epistemological silence. This research, inter alia, indicated that for those individuals associated with this service, the notion of spirituality was central to their construction of reality. It is shown that by using a postmodern approach to research which focuses on discourse, rather than on posivitist demands for proof and objectification, the notion of spirituality can be captured as 'talk', and at least made discussable.