The patient's perceived caring needs as a message of suffering

The aim of the study was to arrive at a deeper understanding of the patient 's experience of eating needs, that is, of problems, needs and desires, by investigating and explaining how these will be expressed and shaped in the caring relation and to illuminate its implications for caring. The target p opulation consisted of 38 patients in a medical ward and 37 patients in a s urgical ward in a central hospital in Western Finland. The patients were in terviewed in the wards and asked about perceived caring needs. By means of a hermeneutical process of interpretation a pattern emerged which was inter preted as pictures of themselves and of the nurses. These types of patients fell into three groups: the satisfied, the complaining and satisfied, and the complaining and dissatisfied patients. The types of nurses were divided into the competent and friendly, the competent and contact-creating and th e competent and courageous. The patients' caring needs can be interpreted a nd understood from the standpoint of their experience of suffering, but als o in relation to their experience of pleasure and comfort. The most conspic uous caring needs were experiencing confidence in the competence of the nur ses, comfort, guidance, dialogue and closeness, which the patients expresse d as problems, needs and desires. The patients' caring needs can contain ne w possibilities of growth and development. The nurse can relieve patients' suffering by promoting their experience of comfort. If the nurses' view of the limits of reality are extended to comprise the existential/spiritual di mension of human beings as well, new possibilities will emerge of interpret ing and understanding patients' caring needs as a message of suffering.