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The lived experience of family resilience after a spinal cord inury: a study using the Parse research method

Background

Spinal cord injury is one of the most disastrous injuries a person may experience. Although one family member experiences the injury, the entire family is affected.

Aim

The purpose of this study is to explore the universal real life experience of this tragedy and to develop an insight into the subsequent family resilience.

Methods

The Parse' Research Methodology was used. Data was collected from July/2006 to Jan./2007 through tape-recorded dialogical engagement and then analyzed by extraction-synthesis and heuristic interpretation. Participants were 7 clients (spinal cord injury patients) and their respective family caregiver.

Results

The findings show that the universal real life ("lived") experience of family resilience for the family caregivers are as follows: to sacrifice wholeheartedly, to fortify the sense of being in this adversity with triumph, to offer restraint and optimism, to construct a "reachable" dream.

Discussion

The findings are discussed in relation to human becoming, related literature and future research.

References

  1. Chen HY, Boore JRP: Establishing a Super-Link System: Spinal cord injury rehabilitation nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 2007, 57: 639-648. 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.04160.x.

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  2. Parse RR: Illuminations: The human becoming theory in practice and research. 1999, Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett

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  3. Walsh F: Family resilience: A framework for clinical practice. Family Process. 2003, 42: 1-18. 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2003.00001.x.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Chen, HY., Lin, SH. The lived experience of family resilience after a spinal cord inury: a study using the Parse research method. Scoliosis 4 (Suppl 1), P5 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-7161-4-S1-P5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-7161-4-S1-P5

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