Nurses who work in palliative care face both practical and emotional challenges. However, recent research carried out at the University of Luxembourg has investigated the concept of “existential growth” where nurses can find personal and professional meaning in caring for palliative patients.
“Existential growth within the palliative care is a complex concept, a dynamic relational process between the nurse and the patient”, explains Dr Afi Agboli, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg who currently studies existential/post-traumatic growth among bereaved parents and among nurses. Her objective is to examine and identify strategies and leverages as well as barriers to the existential/post-traumatic growth.
On the occasion of the 30th congress of SFAP (Société Française d’accompagnement et soins palliatifs) which took place on 12-14 June in France with more than 2500 participants, Afi won the best poster award for her presentation “Existential growth among nurses working in palliative care: a concept analysis based on a literature review”. The main aim of this research is to document published literature on the concept of existential growth among nurses in palliative care settings and also its definition which is found to be complex, dynamic and evolving.
“I am very happy. It is still a nice feeling of course to know that the effort put at a research work could be rewarded and acknowledged as such. However, all the merit goes to all the nursing team which in one way, or the other contributed to this well-deserved achievement. Well done to all of us!”, comments Dr Agboli.
After having analysed the literature, she will continue her research by conducting interviews with nurses in order to get feedback from the field and be able to measure the perception of the existential growth.