How the nurse can alleviate the existential suffering of patients in palliative care

Background: When a patient suffer from a disease and is in need of palliative care, it is normal to have existential questions and thoughts. For some patients these questions can be painful and the nurse need to have knowledge about dealing with these kind of questions and thoughts to be able to relieve and/or prevent this kind of suffering. Aim: The aim was to describe how the nurse can prevent the existential suffering among patients with palliative care. Method: A literature-based study was based on eight qualitative studies. Results: The results showed that nurses meet patients in the palliative care environment which may suffer from existential problems when their questions and thoughts don´t get answered. It showed that the most important a nurse can do is to give time to these calls and build up a safe relation to the patient. This allows the nurse to read the patients existential questions and observing possibly suffering. The result is organized in two categories "To see and confirm" and " To listen and give support" and see subcategories " Use body language", " Create reliable relationship", respond to the existential questions", "Give the patient time", " take help from others in hard situations" and "to focus on other things" Conclusion: It is easy to only focus on the physical illness while caring for a patient and believe that it is creating suffering. Extensive human suffering is not shown at first sight although it is just as important to relieve