This study aimed to clarify the structure of nurses'experience of caring for brain-dead organ donors, focusing on care for such donors'families, with a view to providing a basis for its development. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 7 nurses with experience of caring for brain-dead organ donors, to collect their narratives regarding such experience. On analysis, <challenge the uncertainty of and fluctuations in care> was extracted as an experience-related core category, with 11 categories and 22 labels.

Nurses'experience of caring for brain-dead donors was mainly represented by their active approaches to reduce cognitive dissonance derived from interactions with donors'families or the internally perceived uncertainty of and fluctuations in care as a premise. Such experience consists of 2 processes: <learning from experience> and <redefining the existential significance of care>. With [experience-based learning] and [redefinition of the existential significance of care] as triggers, their care advanced toward [the development of an agency to care for brain-dead organ donors].