The silent demand in the diagnostic phase.

Patients' experience of going through the diagnostic phase in hospital is apt to be overlooked by nurses and physicians; most of their inner preparative work for receiving the diagnosis is hidden because of the vulnerability of the situation. This paper discusses findings from a grounded theory study, of 18 in-depth interviews of 15 patients going through medical investigation at a gastric ward in a Norwegian university hospital. The interviews were conducted in 2002-2003.

Patterns of 'balancing between hope and despair' in the diagnostic phase: a grounded theory study of patients on a gastroenterology ward.

Aim: The aim of the study was to learn how patients going through the diagnostic phase experienced and handled their situation.

Background: Many studies report about the stressful diagnostic phase; however, none has presented a conceptual theory where the concepts are sufficiently related to each other. The Theory of Preparative Waiting has previously been published as a descriptive grounded theory and describes the experience of a group of gastroenterology patients going through the diagnostic phase.

Justifying coercion.

A grounded theory study of psychiatric nurses' experiences of administering medication to involuntary psychiatric patients revealed a basic social process of justifying coercion. Although the 17 nurses interviewed all reported success at avoiding the use of coercion, each had an individual approach to using the nurse-patient relationship to do this. However, all the nurses used the same process to reconcile themselves to using coercion when it became necessary.