Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the hopes and factors related in maintaining hope in people in their twenties and thirties who are living with leukemia/lymphoma. Hope was defined as“the possibility of feeling for producing the power to live in the future”. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with four patients, who were informed of their own disease at the hematology outpatient ward in a university hospital. Inductive and qualitative analysis were employed for analyzing data. As a result, five hopes and five related factors in maintaining hope were identified. The five hopes were: (1) staying alive, (2) relief from disease, (3) visualizing future life and dreams, (4) being oneself, and (5) experience with other people's development. The five related factors in maintaining hope were: (1) having desires for the future, (2) barriers against hope, (3) personality characteristics or sense of worth, (4) strategies to overcome barriers against hope, and (5) environmental factors for supporting hope. We think that these results will prove useful when nurses or those who are with patients select a way to interact with patients by making it possible for them to support the patient's hope.
