The chaos of caregiving and hope

Hope is an important psychosocial resource that has been found to support family caregivers. In order to further understand the challenges of caregivers and their hope experience, we analyzed, using Cortazzi’s (2001) narrative analysis approach, 101 journal entries of family caregivers of persons with advanced cancer. The data was condensed into poetic phrases to reflect structural categories outlined by Cortazzi of event, description and evaluation resulting in a poetic narrative entitled ‘The Chaos of Caregiving and Hope’. Each stanza of the poetic narrative describes the day-to-day experiences of the participants’ chaos and hope. We believe that looking at the caregiving experience through poetic presentation provided new insights into the lives of caregivers caring for terminally ill cancer patients. These insights are related to the intensity of the chaos, and how hope is present in their daily lives.