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African American Elders’ Serious Illness Experiences: Narratives of "God Did," "God Will," and "Life Is Better"

The foundation of culturally sensitive patient-centered palliative care is formed from one's social, spiritual, psychological, and physical experiences of serious illness. The purpose of this study was to describe categories and patterns of psychological, social, and spiritual healing from the perspectives of aging seriously ill African American (AA) elders. Using narrative analysis methodology, 13 open-ended interviews were collected. Three main patterns were prior experiences, I changed, and across past, present experiences and future expectations. Themes were categorized within each pattern: been through it . . . made me strong, I thought about . . . others, went down little hills . . . got me down, I grew stronger, changed priorities, do things I never would have done, quit doing, God did and will take care of me, close-knit relationships, and life is better. Faith in God helped the aging seriously ill AA elders overcome things, whether their current illness or other life difficulties.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/623518
Date04 1900
CreatorsCoats, Heather, Crist, Janice D., Berger, Ann, Sternberg, Esther, Rosenfeld, Anne G.
ContributorsThe University of Arizona College of Nursing, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and The University of Arizona College of Medicine,
PublisherSAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle
RightsCopyright © 2017, © SAGE Publications
Relationhttp://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1049732315620153

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