Quiet pride: The experience of chronic illness by rural older adults

Purposes: To explore how chronic illness is experienced and managed by rura l Hispanic and non-Hispanic older adults and their families, and to identif y how the health care system and community facilitate or inhibit the abilit y to manage chronic illness in a changing health care environment. Design: Descriptive ethnography with purposive sampling. Methods: Data-generation methods included audiotaped interviews from 42 His panic and White, non-Hispanic participants, participant observations, exami nation of documents and artifacts, and photography in rural Colorado. Inter pretive ethnographic methods were used to identify an overarching cultural theme. Findings: Living with chronic illness was a proactive, reciprocal learning process shaped by interrelationships in the context of multiple, diverse co mmunities. Participants expressed living with chronic illness as a quiet pr ide on the journey toward living a meaningful life. Conclusions: Findings provide an understanding of the webs of relationships that constitute the experience of elders living with chronic illness in ru ral communities. Viewing life as meaningful in the context of a broader und erstanding of health and well-being is important for nursing practice and f uture models of care.