The purpose of this study was to understand conversations and to identify typical conversational problems between nurses and patients with dementia.

A conversation analysis method was used. The data was collected in a geriatric institutional setting, using a videotape recorder, and transcribed. The transcribed data was analyzed in terms of expressions, contents, and relationships to identify communicative problems and their resolutions.

Among a total of 532 episodes, 440(82.7%) were identified as nurse-involved episodes. In addition, 66 of the 440 episodes were selected based on the significance of the conversation. The communicative problems between nurses and patients in terms of expressions were identified as “directive and authoritative expressions”, “emotional and competitive expressions”, “evasive and on-looking expressions”, and “excessive use of title only”, such as calling them granny or grandpa without proper names. In terms of content and relationships, “lack of themes in psychosocial areas” and “nurse-led relations” were identified respectively as communicative problems.

The results of this study will provide substantial guidelines for nurses in caring for elderly patients with dementia by deeply understanding linguistic structures and problems of everyday conversations between nurses and patients with dementia.

The purpose of this study was to explore Korean mothers' experiences of caregiving for their adult children with schizophrenia.

A iterative descriptive qualitative research design was used to understand and explain the caregiving experience from the perspective of mothers. The data were collected by individual in-depth interviews and one focus group interview from 11 mothers. The ages of the participants ranged from 50 to 60 years old and the ages of their sick children ranged from late 20s to early 40s.

Three major themes were identified from qualitative thematic analysis: (a) “emotional debris from the disease,” (b) “the disease that makes mothers dumb” (c) “space of rational reason.”

This study would provide health care professionals insights in establishing intervention for mothers by deeply understanding the process of recognition and acceptance of their children with schizophrenia.

The purpose of this study was to explore women caregivers' lived experiences in caring at home for a family member with dementia and to identify conditions that oppress women in the context of family caregiving.

This study was conducted within the feminist perspectives using qualitative secondary data. Ten secondary data conveying self reflective contents were selected from the 25 original data obtained in 1999 to 2000.

Six themes that emerged from the qualitative thematic content analysis were; androcentric view of family caregiving, undervalued family caregiving by the family members, Self rationalization in the context of family caregiving, family-centric care mechanism, exemplary caring within the family context, and inter-familial relationships among women.

The main focus of feminist research is to provide empowerment for the women research participants and to bring about social change of oppressive constraint through some actions. On the basis of the research findings, therefore, action strategies from feminist perspectives were suggested in some aspects of health care delivery sectors, nursing education and research sectors, and administrative sectors.

The purpose of this article was to describe feminism and to propose the integration of a feminist method into qualitative nursing methodology in order to expand the body of nursing knowledge.

The world view of feminism including philosophy, epistemology and methodology was outlined, and a feminist grounded theory and feminist ethnography were suggested as a way of strengthening nursing research methodology using literature review.

Four different philosophical perspectives of feminism, that is, liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist feminism, and social feminism were described. Also epistemological perspectives including feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint, and postmodern feminism, were explained and were related to the methodology and methods of feminism. To enhance the strengths of nursing research within the feminist perspectives, feminist grounded theory and feminist ethnography were exemplified in the paradigm of qualitative nursing research.

This paper suggested that incorporation of feminist approaches within nursing is a valuable attempt to expand the body of nursing knowledge and to enhance the quality of nursing care services by rectifying male-oriented knowledge and by empowering women in the care of other people as well as themselves.