Benevolence: lived experiences of staff nurses

Abstract

Caring, the act of giving care, is seen through history as an essential part of being human and humanity. The Filipino society is generally known to be a caring community, which includes sacrificing their own resources for the benefit of their fellow citizens. Caring is embedded within the culture which is why Filipinos find it easy to care for someone with whom they are unrelated by affinity or nationality; therefore, Filipinos are highly in demand globally in terms of health care services, particularly nursing. Benevolence (Pagkamapagkawanggawa) is a bioethical principle that is innate within the Filipino culture. Heuristic phenomenological method was adopted by the researcher to explain thoroughly the experiences of the researcher and participants and to develop a comprehensive understanding of their realities. Following Moustakas’ heuristic process, a matrix of categories and themes were developed. There were six themes extracted from the data gathered: “Influential Body”, “Nursing Ideals”, “Nurses as Acting Body”, “Consideration and Limitation”, “The Joy of Helping” and “Transformation of Nurses”. The implication of this study to the nursing education and research is that nursing students will be aware of the possible reasons, purposes and effects of benevolence on the life of the staff nurses. A training plan was developed and organized for the staff nurses that has goal in transforming them, through benevolence. This seeks to provide each staff nurses to enhance benevolent spirit, experience the unconditional joy and love for others. This will also give a certain boost with their feelings and develop a much better viewpoint with regards to benevolence to be infused with their daily nursing care routine. Another output is a poem that was born resulting from the continual reflection of the insight of the phenomenon.