The purpose of this study was to explore the processes of hope in informal caregivers of palliative patients. Interviews were conducted with caregivers who were living with and currently providing care to a palliative patient at home. Saturation was reached with 10 caregivers, five females and five males, from 2 cities in Saskatchewan, Canada. <p>The design of this qualitative study was Glasers (2001) grounded theory. Broad, unstructured face to face audio taped interviews were conducted in the participants homes. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant-comparative method of analysis in order to identify the main concern of the participants related to hope, and the basic social processes used to resolve that concern. <p>Eroding hope was the main concern relating to hope during caregiving for a palliative patient. Eroding hope was a result of bad days, negative messages, and experiences with the health care system. The participants deal with eroding hope by using the basic social process of hanging on to hope. Hanging on to hope has 4 sub-processes: a)doing what you have to do, b)living in the moment, c)staying positive, and d)writing your own story. The support of friends, family, and health care professionals and connecting with something bigger and stronger were sub-processes of hanging on to hope that together directly affect the other sub-processes.<p>The findings of this study have direct application for the care and support of informal caregivers providing palliative care at home, as a basis for assessment and interventions that will assist caregivers to hang on to hope. Nurses and other health care professionals need to recognize and value the experience of hope for caregivers by addressing, teaching, and reinforcing the sub-processes and ways of hanging on to hope into their practice.

The purpose of this study was to explore the processes of hope in informal caregivers of palliative patients. Interviews were conducted with caregivers who were living with and currently providing care to a palliative patient at home. Saturation was reached with 10 caregivers, five females and five males, from 2 cities in Saskatchewan, Canada. <p>The design of this qualitative study was Glasers (2001) grounded theory. Broad, unstructured face to face audio taped interviews were conducted in the participants homes. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using constant-comparative method of analysis in order to identify the main concern of the participants related to hope, and the basic social processes used to resolve that concern. <p>Eroding hope was the main concern relating to hope during caregiving for a palliative patient. Eroding hope was a result of bad days, negative messages, and experiences with the health care system. The participants deal with eroding hope by using the basic social process of hanging on to hope. Hanging on to hope has 4 sub-processes: a)doing what you have to do, b)living in the moment, c)staying positive, and d)writing your own story. The support of friends, family, and health care professionals and connecting with something bigger and stronger were sub-processes of hanging on to hope that together directly affect the other sub-processes.<p>The findings of this study have direct application for the care and support of informal caregivers providing palliative care at home, as a basis for assessment and interventions that will assist caregivers to hang on to hope. Nurses and other health care professionals need to recognize and value the experience of hope for caregivers by addressing, teaching, and reinforcing the sub-processes and ways of hanging on to hope into their practice.

The aim of this study is to examine to what extent Swedish writers, who write in English, use the modals must, have to and have got to. The hypothesis being tested argues that the core modal must is not being challenged by the emerging modals have to and have got to in this non-native variety of English. The objective of this thesis is to be accomplished by attempting to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the frequency and usage of the English modals must, have to and have got to in the material? 2) How do the frequencies in the Swedish material compare with the frequencies in the British and American corpora and to the previous studies? 3) How do the Swedish writers use the modals with regard to epistemic and deontic meaning? The study is corpus based, and the corpora used consist of Swedish newspapers in English (SWENC) and material from blogs and tweets which are written in English by Swedes (SESMC). These are compared with the press sub-corpora in BE06 (the British 2006 corpus of CQP web at Lancaster) and in AE06 (the American 2006 corpus of CQP web at Lancaster), which represent British and American native varieties of English. The method is quantitative and the results are presented after the process of normalization. The results show that must, have to and have got to are used in SWENC and SESMC although, to greatly varying degrees. The core modal must is more frequently used in the Swedish corpus than in the British and American sub-corpora. The emerging modal have to is used more frequently than must in all three corpora. The second emerging modal have got to is very seldomly used. Additionally, a qualitative examination of the modals and their meanings reveal that the writers in SWENC and SESMC use the older modal must alongside the newer have to and newest modal have got to, but with a preference for a toned-down style of language. The conclusion drawn is that the core modal must is indeed being challenged by the emerging modal have to even in the non-native variety of English.