Parse's Research Methodology with an Illustration of the Lived Experience of Hope

Abstract

Research traditions unique to the discipline of nursing are beginning to grow; there are now several extant research methodologies unique to nursing science. This paper sets forth one nursing research methodology and discusses the relationship of ontologies to methodologies in building research traditions. The nursing methodology presented here evolved from the theory of man-living-health. It is a hypothesis-generating qual itative methodology congruent with the ontology. Although there are many similarities with qualitative methodologies used in other disci plines, this method focuses on lived experience of health and leads specifically to the concepts of the nursing theory in the analysis process. The entities for study are universal lived experiences of health as defined in the man-living-health theory. The focus is on the study of the human being's participative experience in cocreating health. The processes of the method, participant selection, dialogical engagement, extraction- synthesis, and heuristic interpretation are described in detail, as are implications for refinement of the method. The report of a research study using this emerging method in uncovering the structure of the lived experience of hope is included.