Dying at Home: A Lived Experience

Increasing numbers of elderly are dying at home. Nurses continually illuminate choices for clients who walk the path of terminal illness yet are unaware of the meaning of dying at home for the client. This study is the first to identify the lived experience of dying at home.Participants were 10 white males, 67-83 yrs old, with a mean education of 9 yrs, diagnosed as terminally ill, in Hospice care, Ohio residents and were willing to share the meaning of dying at home. Sample size was determined by redundancy of information.Parses research methodology was used to analyze the unstructured, videotaped interviews held every other week in the participants home from the initiation of the study until death ensued. Common themes were identified and analyzed for level of congruency with the structure and concepts of Parses theory of Human Becoming. The structural definition of dying at home for the sample was struggling with loss of self amidst gaining/losing vitality through interchange with cherished others and changing perspective of the world, hopes and dreams. A must-have book for professional and nonprofessional cargivers of the dying patient.