[The lived experience of family member caring for a person affected by Alzheimer's disease: preliminary results]. / Il vissuto esperienziale del familiare che si prende cura di una persona affetta da malattia d'Alzheimer: risultati preliminari.

The aim of this article is to report the preliminary results from a phenomenological study on the lived experience of Alzheimer's caregivers. Eight caregivers involved in caring for two years at list were interviewed. The analysis of interviews by Giorgi's method showed a multidimensional reality synthesizable in eight spheres of themes: Illness, Patient, Caring, Caregiver's Life and Health, Coping, Spouse/Family, Others, Feelings. Illness has a great impact on the caregivers' life and causes the loss of the affected person even before his/her death. Caring is very hard and emotionally involving. Caregivers mainly complain the lack of support from the National Health System. The continuous involvement in caring produces also health problems, depression, and negative effects within the family. Others are considered as bad. The most common feelings are fear for possible accidents to the patients and remorses. Some caregivers have good coping style putting their faith in God, valuing the closeness of the family and living daily. The utility of the eight spheres of themes are discussed in order to guide the practice toward the caregivers.

[Phenomenology and phenomenological method: their usefulness for nursing knowledge and practice]. / Fenomenologia e metodo fenomenologico: loro utilita' per la conoscenza e la pratica infermieristica.

Phenomenology is a thought movement the main aim of which is to study human fenomena as they are experienced and lived. Key concepts of phenomenology are: the study of lived experience and subjectivity of human beings, the intentionality of consciousness, perception and interpretation. Phenomenological research method has nine steps: definition of the research topic; superficial literature searching; sample selection; gathering of lived experiences; analysis of lived experiences; written synthesis of lived experiences; validation of written synthesis; deep literature searching; writing of the scientific document. Phenomenology and phenomenological method are useful for nursing either to develop knowledge or to guide practice. Qualitative-phenomenological and quantitative-positivistic research are complementary: the first one guides clinicians towards a person-centered approach, the second one allows the manipulation of phenomena which can damage health, worsen illness or decrease the quality of life of people who rely on nursing care.